Origins
by brightspark
Summary: The kids from the Orphanage, plus Rinoa, go on a 'quest', in Selphie's words, to find out where they came from. Multipart written for NaNoWriMo. Het, slash and femmeslash friendly.
1. Prologue

Hey everyone! I don't really post on this site anymore, as you might be able to tell, but all my fics are easy to find on my LiveJournal account, edenbound. This one will be updated when I remember (it's more likely to happen quickly if there's interest, but I don't subscribe to the whole 'five reviews before I update' idea so it'll eventually all get updated regardless). I'm actually writing this for NaNoWriMo, on which I blame all spelling errors and grammatical silliness - just let me know if you see any of that and I'll deal with it ASAP.

Finally, I'm het, slash and femmeslash friendly, so don't be surprised if you find such content in my stories. There will be no content in this story that goes above PG13 in rating. :)

* * *

"It's a boy," the nurse says, and the woman sits up, her face pale, to take the carefully wrapped bundle. A young man hovers by the bedside, looking somewhere between disgusted, overwhelmed and intensely happy. He leans down over the bed to get a look at the tiny face, somewhat bemused at the silence.

"I thought newborns always cried a lot?"

The nurse smiles comfortably, bustling around the room doing a lot of obscure but no doubt useful things. "He had himself a little cry while I was cleaning him up, but other than that, he's a good boy. Since you were so tired, ma'am, we've given him some milk already, but you might like to feed him a little later. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have other people to tend to."

The father sits down carefully on the edge of the bed, still peering in at the tiny face – reaching to push back the edges of the blankets a little to get a better look. Neither of the new parents look up as the nurse hurries out, closing the door quietly behind her. Instead, they exchange a look: part anxiety, part that loving, solemn joy that comes in moments like that.

"I was expecting a girl," the father says, softly.

"You'd better like this one, because I'm not giving you another," the mother says, just the hint of teasing in her voice. He laughs and leans in to kiss her, reaching up to smooth her hair back from her still sweaty forehead.

"Oh, I do like this one. I wasn't expecting a boy, though. What shall we call him?"

For a moment there was silence as the little baby stirred in his blankets. The mother adjusted them a little and held the baby closer, letting his fingers curl around one of hers when he reached for her. He had them both caught in the spell that so many newborns weave, a kind of quiet, awed reverence for what has been created, the new life on earth.

"He'll have your last name," the mother says, finally. "Even if we never did get chance to get married."

"I'll marry you when I come back, I promise."

She smiles at him. "I know."

"So… what shall we call him?"

She hesitates for a moment, looking down at the baby and his tiny drowsy face. She rocks him a little, prompting his eyes to fall gently closed, and she smiles at the sight of him at peace. Somehow, that quiets the trouble stirring in her, too, somehow makes the idea of what's to come more bearable. The separation to come has never seemed easy, but somehow the baby makes it all the more likely that he'll come back – not that she's ever doubted that, but…

"Seifer," she says, softly, "Seifer Almasy."

"It's perfect," he says, kissing her cheek lightly again. She reaches up and draws him closer, kisses him on the lips lightly, lingeringly. He pulls away, then, reluctantly, straightening up and tugging at the uniform that looks new and fits badly. "I should go. I need to be there –"

"I know," she says, sadly.

He leans in and kisses her one more time. "I'll be back before you know it. With medals for bravery and all of that."

"Serving in Adel's army, it doesn't seem likely," she whispers. He kisses her again, kisses away the protest, and straightens up.

"You know I have to. To keep you and Seifer safe. I'll write. Every day, if I can."

"I know."

He takes one last look at her, at her and at the baby lying in her arms, and then he turns to go. He doesn't look back, and she doesn't look up, but focuses on the features of the kid in her arms, the fingers that grasp hers gently. She whispers to him softly, telling him how brave his father is, how brave they have to be because of that. She rocks him and tries to hold back her tears, trying to be as tearless as the baby in her arms.

The nurse looks in, after a while, and sees her sitting there silently, frozen. Wisely, she leaves again, closing the door quietly after her.

"You have to be brave, Seifer," the new mother whispers, one more time, brushing her fingers over his cheek.


	2. Chapter One

"The cafeteria is kind of quiet today. I wonder where everybody is?" Selphie wriggles a little in Irvine's lap to have a look around at who is there, and Irvine puts his arms around her and tries to get comfortable, grimacing only a little at her slightly bony weight. "I know Quisty will be along soon, her class always finishes early on Wednesdays. She's got that new boy in there…"

"The troublesome one?" Irvine asks, frowning slightly.

"The new Seifer, yeah," Selphie says, grinning at Seifer, sitting a few tables away, who just rolls his eyes, already used to the comparison. "He keeps wolf whistling at me whenever he passes me in the corridors."

Irvine grins a little, leaning up to steal a kiss. "I can see why, darlin'."

"Flatterer," Selphie says, smiling brightly. She bounces a little and waves frantically when she spots Quistis making her entrance, smiling brightly and drawing another few creative grimaces from her unfortunate boyfriend. "Hey, Quisty! Over here! I got you a coffee already so you can avoid the queue!"

Irvine tips his hat a little and waves, foregoing the flirtatious wink only because it never gets any reaction from Quistis anyway. When Selphie settles again, he wraps an arm tightly around her to keep her in place, smiling a lazy smile at Quistis when she joins them, sitting down and smoothing her skirt with a sigh. He raises an eyebrow at the expression on her face. "Rough morning?"

"You could definitely say that. I keep having flashbacks to trying to teach Seifer. Failing to teach Seifer, I mean." Quistis sighs, rubbing the bridge of her nose as if to alleviate a headache. "Of course, he's not quite as bad, but he's certainly troubled enough. I wish I could get someone else to take that class, just sometimes, when I need a break…"

Selphie laughs. "Maybe we need another party?"

"We had one last week, Sel," Irvine points out, but he doesn't honestly look as if he's too bothered about the idea.

"Yes, and even Sir Laguna came!"

Quistis laughs softly. "I was quite… pleased to see that. I mean, it could've been nothing, and Squall could've ignored him the whole time, but I think they're really starting to get on well now. It's really nice to see Squall actually interacting with Laguna after refusing to talk to him for months after finding out he was his father. I thought he was going to sulk forever after that, but he even actually smiled."

"It'd be interesting to find out what happened to all of our parents," Irvine says, suddenly. Selphie shifts slightly in his lap, twisting to give him a confused look.

"I didn't know you thought about it at all."

"It's kind of hard to avoid thinking about it when you realise that all along Squall did have someone," Quistis says, thoughtfully. She picks up her coffee for the first time and takes a sip, her eyes on Irvine's face curiously. "I'd be interested in finding out about my parents, too. I mean, there's so much I have no way of knowing. I doubt any of our parents are still alive – I mean, there was Adel, and then our own struggle with Ultimecia… it hasn't exactly been a peaceful time."

"It'd be interesting," Irvine says, simply. A few tables away, Seifer looks up, shushing Raijin and Fujin to listen to the conversation.

Selphie claps her hands, grinning. "We could make it a quest!"

"A quest?"

"You know, take some time off, get the old gang all together properly, find a car or two and go off and have adventures! We could visit loads of towns and just look for anybody with our surnames…" Selphie waves her hands in time with her talking, looking more excited than ever and provoking a few more grimaces from Irvine as she wriggles about. "I mean, I know our surnames might not even be right, but it's worth a try, right? And we could all do with a holiday. You just said so yourself, Quistis!"

"I can't deny that," she says, with a glimmer of a smile.

"I'd join you."

All three of them look up to see Seifer standing there, hands in pockets and a curiously blank expression on his face. He doesn't seem as tall as he once did, somehow, though maybe that's something that comes with defeat. He shrugs slightly when he sees them all looking at him in surprise, looking slightly awkward and waiting for someone to say something.

"Why?" Quistis asks, after an uncomfortable silence that felt long and probably wasn't.

Seifer shrugs again. "I want to find out about my family as much as anyone. Probably more. I have to have come from somewhere, right? Hell, maybe my family loved me."

Selphie opens her mouth to say something, and then shuts it again, somewhat sobered by the idea of Seifer wanting so badly to find his family, just in case they loved him. She almost gets up and hugs him, but instead just shifts again on Irvine's lap and smiles brightly at him. "Well, I don't mind you coming with us! Zell might be an asshole to you, but that's no different, right? I don't think anyone else will mind, I mean, you came from the Orphanage too…"

"I don't mind," Irvine says, into the sudden silence. He smiles slightly at Seifer and tips his hat amiably. "But it'll be interesting to see how Zell reacts."

Seifer starts to smirk and Quistis rolls her eyes. "We don't even know whether we can get the time off to go on this quest, you know. I mean, I'm sure Squall wouldn't object to us trying to find our families, but we are top SeeDs and Garden needs us a lot of the time. I mean, he'd have to find someone to teach in our places, and find new SeeDs good enough to be team leaders, and –"

"No offence, Quistis, but there were plenty of good SeeDs before we all became SeeDs. Just because you're Squall's best friends and get the good slots doesn't mean there are no other SeeDs," Seifer says, quietly. He looks away then and shrugs. "And anyway, shouldn't we make Squall come with us? If it's going to be a whole 'Orphanage reunion' type thing? Then it'd be Xu's job to find people to teach and appoint new team leaders."

Selphie grins. "Of course! Squall will have to come, it wouldn't be right to have adventures without him. But how're we going to convince him?"

Irvine smiles somewhat slyly, leaning back in his seat. "How about setting Rinoa on him? I mean, they split up ages ago, but we know they're still friends. She has him wrapped around her little finger even now. We just call her up, convince her it's a good idea, and then she convinces Squall for us. All our problems solved. And I don't think any of us would object to Rin coming along too."

"As long as you don't flirt with her, I'm fine," Selphie says sweetly, elbowing Irvine gently, more teasing than actually meaning it.

"It'd be nice to see her again," Quistis says, quietly, a faraway look in her eyes.

"Not that my opinion's worth much, but I think it'd be nice to have her along," Seifer says, quietly. He's still standing up and, impatiently, Selphie reaches up to grab his arm, dragging him along and then tugging him down in the chair she was sitting in before she moved into Irvine's lap. He moves with a kind of bemused obedience, sitting down comfortably and stretching his legs out – suddenly looking a lot more at home.

"Your opinion is worth as much as anyone else's, you're on this quest too," Selphie says, firmly. She grins a little, clasping her hands. "I like this plan. It's really… devious."

"I'll call Rinoa, then," Irvine says, with one of his charming smiles.

Selphie gives him a look that's meant to be accusing. "I'll give her a call, mister. The quest is my idea."

Seifer does smirk now, reaching to poke Selphie gently and getting an odd look from Quistis for the easy familiarity that somehow seems more like a gesture from their time at the Orphanage rather than anything more recent. "Besides, from all I'm hearing, you want to lock him up away from the ladies."

"I'm not that bad, Almasy," Irvine protests, good naturedly.

"Look in the dictionary under 'serial flirt' and you find the name 'Irvine Kinneas' listed as the first example," Seifer says with a shrug. Quistis finds herself smiling at the look on Seifer's face, finds herself hoping all of a sudden that this will last. She always has wanted that old Seifer back: not the one from before the war, but the one that could be a friend as often as he'd be a bully. The one she vaguely remembers helping her up when she fell, the one who'd beaten up a bigger boy from the town for saying something mean to Zell, the one who'd once been Squall and Ellone's constant companion.

"Really, I mean it, I'm not that bad. I belong to little Sephy here."

"Yeah, yeah, I know," Seifer says, waving a hand and rolling his eyes, "I remember when you were five years old and sneaking into her bed and promising to marry her and all of that. Never did like having Shiva in my head except when I had to be junctioned to train, she was a frigid bitch if there ever was one. And Quez never liked me that much."

"You remember stuff from the Orphanage?"

"Some of it," he says, shrugging. "We can trade stories sometime, if your brains aren't all like cheese someone let a mouse at. For now, though, I'd better take my leave. I have an appointment to keep."

They wait until he's gone before they all look at each other. Quistis is smiling, just a little. "I think this is going to be really interesting."

Selphie grins. "You know, I'm starting to see what Rinoa saw in him…"

"Hey!"

* * *

Ring, ring, ring.

"I'm ignoring you," Squall says, firmly, to the phone – wherever it is. He doesn't look up from his work, but doesn't actually get any work done until the phone stops ringing and he relaxes a little. He starts to sign the bits of paper again, scanning them quickly to make sure he isn't signing his life away or admitting to whatever terrible scandal. He stretches his legs out and tries to get comfortable, reaching for his cup of coffee only to find that he finished his coffee some time earlier.

And then the phone starts to ring again.

"I'm still ignoring you," Squall mutters, but this time he starts to ferret among the rustling papers for wherever the damn thing got buried this time. "If this is a reporter, a salesman or Cid, I'm going to hurl the damn thing out of the window… Hello?"

"Squall!"

Squall relaxes again, leaning back into his chair and sighing softly. "Rin."

"It's been a while. And don't say 'not long enough', because I know you're not as mean as that really."

He can hear the pout in her voice. He sighs and wonders if he could conjure up some coffee just by wishing hard enough. "It has been a while, and no, I wouldn't say any such thing, if only because you would get upset with me and I still hate it when you sulk, even if you don't subject me to it on a face to face basis."

"You're turning into a grumpy old man, Squall Leonhart."

"Yes, yes, I'm sure I am. What are you calling about?"

"Do I always have a reason?"

Squall considers it for a moment and then smiles, with just a hint of a teasing edge in his voice that comes out so very rarely, "Yes. Usually. Who's getting married? Which unlikely couple have got together that I might conceivably be vaguely interested in? Or what unlikely plan do you want SeeDs to support this time? Or who have you found that's supposedly just perfect for me?"

"That was quite a long speech from you," Rinoa says, answering with a teasing tone of her own. "Actually, Zone is getting married. Not that I meant to call you about just that, really, but since you mentioned people getting married I thought it might be of some interest. You and the other SeeDs are invited to the wedding, if you want to come. I think you are, anyway. If not, I'll get him to sort that out."

"Rinoa…"

"Right, what I was actually calling about. You're really impatient, you know that?"

Squall sighs softly, rubbing his forehead briefly, feeling the beginnings of a headache coming on – possibly, he thinks, brought on by intensive wishing for coffee, without being adequately fuelled with coffee to begin with. "I can be patient when it's important, but I do have work to do."

"Are you saying this isn't important?"

"Rin…"

"Alright, alright," Rinoa says, cheerfully. Squall settles down a little, cradling the phone between his cheek and his shoulder, and drags some work towards him to keep scrawling his somewhat untidy signature on the correct lines and in the correct boxes. "Wouldn't you say you need a break from work, though? Just a little one? I mean, every time I've come to see you, you have piles of work all over your desk."

Squall sighs, sensing a return to the old theme of 'you're overworking yourself, you need to take a break'. "A break would be wonderful, but I haven't time for one. We've been through this before, Rinoa. I'm willing to make time for people, but I can't just go taking weeks and weeks off for holidays."

"Yeah, yeah. You're so… apathetic about things, honestly. Have you even tried to talk to him yet?"

A faint flush of colour comes suddenly into Squall's cheeks. "No, and I don't intend to. Things are fine as they are."

"Mutual ignoring each other? That's fine? You're happy with that?"

"No, but…"

Rinoa's voice gains a whole new level of cheerfulness, as if to deliberately overrule the suddenly sad note in Squall's voice. "Well, anyway, I have a plan – or, well, a certain someone came up with it, actually – to cheer you up and get you out of the office for a while. I'm sure you're due leave, anyway, I asked Quistis and you know she has access to all the jiggery-pokery about who gets leave when."

Squall looks up from his work to focus on her voice all of a sudden, noting the tone of satisfaction. "What are you plotting, Rin?"

"A take over of Garden?"

"Seriously, Rin? What is it?"

"Seriously, I have an idea for where you could go on holiday," she says, cheerfully, and he groans in exasperation. She won't let him interrupt, though, speaking a little louder to keep him from getting a word in edgeways. "It's not my idea, really, it's Selphie's, but I think it's a really good idea. You and everyone from the Orphanage – and me, too – need to go and find out about everybody's parents."

"Ri –"

"We already covered the part about you and the others all being due leave."

"Rin –"

"And it'd be a good opportunity for you to get out of Garden, so Cid sees he can survive without you for long periods of time."

"Rino –"

"Stop arguing, okay? Just say yes. Work it however you like, but work it out somehow. They all really want to find out about their parents. And you know you're happier now you've found Laguna, even if you're always moody with him. And you could all do with a holiday – Selphie's telling me that Quistis is getting really overworked."

Squall sighs softly, wishing harder than ever for more coffee. "Yes. Fine. I'll work it out. If only to stop you nagging at me. You're going to make a really good mother sometime if you ever have kids. A really, really good mother. But it isn't going to be any good. They should be used to the fact that we're orphans. That's why we were in an orphanage."

"Can't you have a little romanticism and hope for a miracle?"

"There's already been one miracle in the group, I doubt we're that lucky."

"You're way too pessimistic," Rinoa says with a sigh. Squall rolls his eyes and finds his pen again, mysteriously rolled off under the desk. For a minute he considers blaming Rinoa for that – even my stationery is in league with you...

"If I'm pessimistic, I'm never disappointed when things don't go right."

"If the glass is always half empty, you can get a secretary to keep refilling it," Rinoa says, and then, more teasingly. "A young, handsome, male secretary. Possibly blond."

"Rinoa."

"I'll be coming with you on the big quest, by the way, and I hear Seifer wants to go too, so hold that thought on the secretary."

"Rinoa!"

* * *

"You look like you need that," Irvine says, nodding towards the coffee in Squall's hand. He smiles a little and hooks his foot around the leg of a chair to draw it out, flopping into it gracelessly. "Especially with all that work. Looks like that holiday will be a good thing."

Squall smiles, just a little, sipping his coffee with a slowness that doesn't hide any of his eagerness for the effects. "Soon I'll be taking a big break, so I'm working a bit harder now so Xu doesn't have as much to do when she takes over my office for a month or so. Don't tell Rinoa that, though. She seems to think I should start relaxing now because of the vacation to come. She called you back about it already?"

"Well, you do look like you need it, no offence," Irvine says, shrugging. "Yeah, or, well, she called Selphie and the ensuing happy shriek nearly burst my eardrums."

"The things you put up with for love," Squall says, dryly. "You think we'll actually find anything? Or anyone?"

Irvine tips his seat back a little as he considers that, picking at the edge of the table absently. He keeps his eyes on Squall's face, as if trying to read what he's thinking. "I don't have much hope, no. But at the same time, I want to believe we will find something. I mean, we have last names. They have to have come from somewhere, or we'd've all taken Matron's surname or something. I know Zell took his adoptive parents' surnames, but Seifer never got adopted, and Quistis says the family who adopted her weren't Trepes. So..."

"So maybe there's hope, you think?"

"I don't know." Irvine shrugs slightly, reaching to steal the last few gulps of Squall's coffee. "I hope, I guess, but mostly I think it'll be just a bit of fun for us all. And, well, it's a bit of a miracle that any of us found our parents, so maybe we've used up all our amazing luck on you."

"Doesn't it put you off the whole idea? That it's futile?"

"Nah. It'll be a good time, even if we don't find anyone in the end. But, like I say, it'd be good to find out where we all come from, too."

"I see." There's silence for a moment and then Squall looks up, smiling just a little. "I spoke to my dad about it. He's enthusiastic about the whole thing. Says he'll give us help where he can, though I don't know what he thinks he can do."

Irvine smiles his easy smile. "Maybe we'll end up needing that support."

"Nobody is dragging me into a bar and getting me drunk."

"Why, Squall, would we do that?"

Squall smiles a little more, perhaps with a teasing age. "Yes, you probably would. I know Selphie wants to ply me with alcohol so I open up, and I think Rinoa has a few devious plans involving alcohol and me. Not," he says, quickly, when Irvine raises an eyebrow, "to do with her. She just wants me to loosen up and let people see my emotions."

"I see. She does have a point. We're not out to get you, Squall."

"I know."

Irvine smiles a little, leaning back in his seat and looking Squall over for a minute. It's true that he has relaxed, somewhat, and Irvine only needs to think over the conversation in the past few minutes to know that he does betray more of himself now, does allow himself to have actual conversations. He remembers the way Squall was at first, not responding to anything he said – whether he was making a pass at him or just trying to be friendly. This is definitely an improvement. Once upon a time he'd even thought Squall hated him – for not being a SeeD yet, for being a little too emotional.

He was quite surprised, somehow, to find out he was wrong. He still hasn't quite gotten used to it, but it seems more natural now. "Selphie really is pretty excited about the whole quest idea."

"I knew she would be," Squall says, shrugging slightly.

"Thanks for going along with it, for her sake, anyway."

He shrugs a little, and Irvine decides not to press. There's something Squall half wants to say, he can tell that much, but if he's not ready to say it straight out, Irvine isn't the one to push. Rinoa might, Selphie might, Quistis probably would, and Zell would be too tactless to realise he shouldn't push. He's pretty much content to wait for the rare moments Squall lets himself be vulnerable.

Not to say that he isn't interested in finding out what's beyond all the leather and belts and frosty attitude. He's willing to bet he isn't half so frosty somewhere inside.

And, of course, he can still remember a little kid with misty grey eyes, always following his sister about.

"I didn't think you'd come along even if you did decide it was workable," Irvine says, after a moment's silence. He looks up at Squall, catching a surprisingly soft look in his eyes. "Why did you decide to come? Or should I ask 'how did Rinoa blackmail you into coming?', instead?"

"The latter would be more accurate, I suppose," Squall says, his voice trailing off a little. He shrugs and shakes his head, huffing softly. "I miss getting out of the office, anyway. I haven't been training in weeks."

"Don't you spar with Seifer?"

Squall looks up quickly, as if expecting Irvine to be teasing or something. He takes a moment to respond, narrowing his eyes a little. "Not anymore. Neither of us have the time."

Irvine remembers something else about the Orphanage, too. He remembers that if anyone was Squall's constant companion apart from Ellone, it was probably Seifer. He's always thought it was kind of a pity the way that turned out. "It's a shame. You could be good friends."

"So Rinoa keeps telling me," he replies with a somewhat forced smile.

"Well," Irvine says, recognising some of Squall's discomfort, surprisingly clear on his face, "I need to get going. I guess you have plenty to be getting on with, with all that work and whatever arrangements you need to make for the trip. And Selphie'll be missing me."

"So you hope," Squall says, teasing a little, smiling a little more naturally.

Irvine raises an eyebrow slightly as he gets up, tipping his hat. "Yeah, so I hope. You're awfully pessimistic and cynical about love, aren't you? Any particular reason?"

He shrugs. "Do I need a reason?"

"There usually is one, somewhere along the line, even if you don't remember what it is anymore." Irvine shrugs slightly. "Well, have fun with all the paperwork."

Squall watches Irvine go, and then glances at his coffee cup, inspecting the bottom of it as if he could read his fortune from the sludge left there. All he can tell, of course, is that the cafeteria coffee tends to be crap and too hastily made. He sighs softly. Irvine was right about all the work he has to do. And even more right about not even knowing why he doesn't like love anymore.  



	3. Chapter Two

"What are you doing in here, mister? There's a strategy meeting in the cafeteria right now!"

Squall looks up and smiles just the slightest bit at Selphie, almost unable to avoid it. She's like that, he's noticed, and not just with him. Everybody becomes that little bit more open under Selphie's influence, whether it's a tough nut like him or possibly Seifer, or someone like Quistis who isn't quite that closed up, but is a little more restrained.

He's just waiting for the day when Selphie _really_ makes Quistis let go.

"I'm busy, Sel. You can do that without me, right?"

She's pouting. God, he hates it when she does that. He runs his hand through his hair and shifts a pile of paper restlessly, hoping she'll take the point about how busy he is. She huffs softly, putting a hand on her hip and tapping her foot. "Squall, the purpose of a vacation is to actually, you know, relax. And you _can_ start now. Leave Xu plenty of work to do. She wouldn't like to have _nothing_, after all."

"I doubt that'd be possible," Squall murmurs, looking away from the pout and the huffing and trying to ignore the foot tapping. "And it wouldn't be fair even if it was."

"It'll be _fun_."

"More fun if I'm not there, I'm sure."

Selphie laughs softly, perching on the edge of his desk. He starts to protest and then shuts his mouth, thinking he couldn't care less if Galbadia get back a stack of forms with creases in the shape of Selphie's skinny butt. They deserve worse, really. "Oh, Squall, don't be silly. Of course we can't talk tactics without you there! We've even made Seifer agree to join the discussion."

Squall bites his lip. "Sel, I really can't..."

"C'mon!"

He takes another look at the piles of work he has to do. There's nothing _that_ important, and he has to admit that the idea of leaving a lot of paperwork for the conscientious Xu – with her rather shorter signature, too – is kind of appealing. "Oh, alright then."

Selphie grins and jumps up. "Alright! Everyone's already waiting, they sent me to get you. They figured my charms might be best in the matter."

"Your charms?"

She sticks her tongue out at him. "You know, sometimes I'm almost sorry we got you to talk more. You can be really _mean_. You should be more like Sir Laguna."

Squall smiles slightly, remembering his initial evaluation – and underestimation – of Laguna. A moron he'd thought him then, and though he still thinks he's a bit less professional than he should be, he knows what a stupid prejudgement _that_ was. There _is_ a reason Laguna runs a country, even if it's mostly hard to fathom.

"Hello in there?"

Squall blinks slightly and then rolls his eyes at Selphie, in front of him and waving a hand vigorously in front of his face. "You'll fall over, walking backwards like that."

"Of course I – ow, hey, watch where you're going, mister!"

He rolls his eyes again as Selphie grins at the student she just tripped over. He's amused by the way she deals with the situation, light-heartedly accusing him of trying to attack a SeeD, while making him smile after the embarrassment of making a fool of himself in front of the commander. All the same, Squall thinks, the poor boy isn't going to be able to forget the situation anytime soon. Even he wouldn't have been able to shake it off completely when he was a student, and he knows now that then he was _unbelievably_ cold and detached.

Sometimes, he misses being able to do that.

Sometimes, like when Selphie grins at him and actually takes his arm to drag him along to the cafeteria, he's just glad for his friends and glad that they won't let him shut them out and that he can't quite close his heart to them, even when he thinks he needs to. He blames Rinoa for that – or honours her with acknowledging that she did it; it's a close call, most days.

"I'm really surprised," Selphie says, her arm still linked through his, "that we actually got leave."

"Don't expect any more for a year or so."

"Meanie."

"A SeeD has to be in Garden on active duty with the possibility of being sent on a mission for ten months out of every twelve, barring health problems," Squall says, shrugging. "It's just the rules, nothing I'm making up to be mean."

"Still! You're the one that'll enforce it!"

He shrugs again. "Maybe."

"So you are a meanie. A big meanie."

Squall sighs and surrenders to the inevitable. "Fine, yes, I'm a big meanie. Anyway, I don't know what you're so excited about. No doubt while we're gone and not communicating with Garden, something bad will happen and we'll come back to a crater in the earth."

"Garden can move."

"That's not the point."

"Huff, huff, huff," Selphie says, grinning at him, stopping and mimicking his way of huffing, one hand on her hip. Squall isn't sure if he's more amused or embarrassed: his mannerisms are well known and everyone who passes knows exactly who she's making fun of and about what.

"Sel…"

"Garden won't need us. You're too pessimistic."

He sighs. "Everybody says that."

"Because it's _true_."

With that, however, Selphie drags him into the cafeteria and any attempt at rebuttal is very much overwhelmed by the noisy lunchtime crowd; the clatter of trays, the chatter of people waiting in the queue – and, of course, the sound of Zell choking on a hotdog while Quistis scolds him for eating too quickly and Seifer simply laughs his ass off. Even Squall has to smile as he joins the table, avoiding Seifer's eyes and sitting down as far from him as possible.

"I got 'im!" Selphie announces cheerfully, even though they've already noticed (and greeted) him. She takes a curtsey when Quistis compliments her on her cleverness, and then grins. "I've got someone else to go get. You guys start the strategy meeting without me, okay?"

She exchanges a wink with Irvine and then dashes off.

"Someone else?"

"Use your head," Seifer says, rolling his eyes. He stretches his legs out with a yawn and glances around at everybody. "So, what the fuck does Selphie want us to do? Or is just an excuse to be social and get everyone together? 'Cause if so, she's paying for the rest of my coffee to make up for the waste of time."

"If you're coming with us, you really should act more friendly, Seifer," Quistis says, somewhat reprovingly. She softens it, though, with a smile, realising suddenly how uncomfortable he must feel, surrounded by former enemies. And he barely displays a sign of it; not really. She finds it amazing enough that he said he'd come along.

"I'll act however I like," he says with a smirk reminiscent of the guy who used to make her teaching days hell. She rolls her eyes at him, pushing her hair back and hoping Selphie will be back soon with the mysterious last person.

"You always do, man," Zell says, glaring a little at Seifer. Quistis rolls her eyes, leaning back in her seat.

"So... has anyone got any ideas on where to start?"

Squall shrugs. "I thought the logical place to start would be going to see Matron.

Even if she doesn't know your real last names or where you actually come from, she might know something about it. She can't have just found all of you wandering around. And if she didn't find you, maybe she knows who did, or who sent you to the Orphanage..."

Quistis laughs a little. "See, _this_ is why we really want you along, with your superior grasp of tactics."

"I'm not that good."

"Yeah, you just spend too much time thinking, Leonhart," Seifer says, rolling his eyes. "Face it, you're Garden's top tactician, and for good reason."

Squall shrugs, a little surprised by the almost-admission that he might be better than Seifer at _anything_. "Maybe. It's just an idea."

"Squall!"

Quistis laughs at the way Squall's eyes go wide, and at the easy smile that comes over his face when he sees Rinoa – they'd never made a good couple but friends, yes. Squall gets up quickly, well-prepared for the clinging hug Rinoa has been planning since she knew all of this was happening. "Hey, Rinny."

"Hey, you," she says, and then pulls away to hug Zell, and then Irvine, and even Seifer for a moment, whispering something kind in his ear. And then she turns to Quistis, who hugs her carefully, as if afraid to get it wrong. A moment later, Rinoa is stepping away and flopping gracefully into a chair next to Seifer. "So nice to see you guys again!"

"You're just looking for adventure," Seifer says, a hint of teasing in his voice. Zell glances at him, surprised by the gentleness there, too, but Rinoa just smiles at him, putting a hand on his arm.

"Maybe; I've been bored without you lot."

"Where's Selphie?"

"Getting me a coffee," Rinoa says, shrugging slightly. "Have you guys decided on any plans of action yet?"

"Squall had some ideas for us, of course," Irvine says, rolling his eyes. "But maybe you and Selphie can help more by bringing your beauty and grace to the conversation."

"I'm not sure how that helps with planning."

"It doesn't, Zell, but it always pays to flatter the ladies," Irvine elbows him gently, rolling his eyes in an exasperated manner. "How do you think I won over your mother even after I half-dragged you home puking your guts up after that night out?"

"An unfair amount of _luck_."

Seifer laughs. "I bet you got in trouble for that, huh, Dincht? You've always been such a mummy's boy."

"Actually," he replies, huffily, "Ma didn't mind. I'm a big boy, she says, after all. She is kind of annoyed about all _this_ though. I think she thinks I don't 'ppreciate her or something, just 'cause I want to find out about my real family. Of course, I _do_ appreciate her, but I still want to know, you know?"

"Mummy's boy," Seifer says again, with the air of one proving a long-held opinion to be true. Squall rolls his eyes.

"Are we really just going to sit here insulting each other?"

Seifer raises an eyebrow. "Impatient, Leonhart?"

"I _do_ have work to be doing."

"So get on and do it, spoilsport," Selphie says, too brightly to be really hurt, as she returns and hands Rinoa a cup of something very, very hot. "I can have your chair if you do, so there's good in everything."

Squall gets up, rolling his eyes. "I'll see you all later. Keep me informed of anything you decide – so I can veto it, if nothing else."

"Veto it?"

"I know what you're like, Selphie."

He turns to go at that and leaves the others staring after him with expressions varying from amusement to faint annoyance. Rinoa takes careful note of Seifer's expression: regretful, somehow, almost fragile. She knows exactly what she's going to do about that. She stands up and cups her hands around her mouth to help make her voice heard across the cafeteria. "Squall! I'll come and see you in your office once we're done plotting!"

He looks up for a moment and gives her the briefest smile and a tiny wave before leaving the cafeteria. Rinoa sits back down again, looking pleased with herself and stretching her legs out.

Selphie clears her throat. "So, what do we have so far by way of plans?"

---

"Still terribly busy working yourself to death?"

"You _could_ knock," Squall says, only a hint of _real_ peevishness in his voice. Rinoa laughs and closes the door behind her, commandeering a chair from a corner of the room and dragging it up close to Squall's. She squeezes in beside him and snatches a pen and a stack of paperwork.

"I'm going to help you out a bit," she says, cheerfully. "It doesn't matter if the signature doesn't look anything like yours, right?"

"By this point, I don't care, and since they've been waiting three months for a response, nor do they. Just make sure you're not signing anything stupid, and if there're any requests for SeeD aid, stick them on that pile over there," Squall says, huffing softly and waving his hand in the vague direction of a pile. "What're you doing in here?"

"You're acting like you're not pleased to see me."

Squall huffs softly. "You know I am. I shouldn't have to say it."

Rinoa pauses a little at that, surprised by Squall actually voicing that feeling. She smiles and reaches up to put an arm over his shoulders in a quick hug that makes him roll his eyes at her. "You don't have to say it, not really. But sometimes it _is_ nice to hear. Sometimes you give the impression that you hate the world and the world hates you, all the time."

"Only some of the time," he says, with a glimmer of a smile.

She rolls her eyes again. "Anyway, I wanted to talk to you about Seifer," she pauses when Squall groans and pokes him gently. "I haven't spoken to him yet, but the way he looks at you, you can tell he wants to be friends, or –"

"Rinoa, please don't."

She huffs softly. "Why not? Ever since I figured out that our relationship was going nowhere, you've been on your own. It's not healthy for a guy, not even a guy like you."

"I'm fine," he says, focusing on his work again, trying to block out the things she's saying. Things that hit uncomfortably true, because, friends aside, he _has_ been lonely. Partly because of work, but partly, yes, because there are all kinds of things he wants and never seems to be getting. He sighs softly and she catches the sound, inching her chair closer to his.

"You need somebody, Squall. You know you do."

"I don't need anybody."

"We went through this before."

"Then can we talk about something else for once? Just as a novelty thing? My love life is really none of your business, not since you left me."

For a moment, there's silence, and even Squall winces at the harshness of his words. He closes his eyes and waits for her to say something, knowing she won't retaliate, not now, not with these things in mind. Once, she would've, when she still had hopes she could spur him to passion for her, but she's been resigned to the fact that it won't ever happen for a long time.

"I really am happy to be with you guys again, you know," she says, quietly. "This is an important quest, to all of you, even though you won't let yourselves hope that everything will come off. Not even Selphie does, not really. When I was with you guys, fighting Ultimecia, I felt... strong. I felt like I could do anything. You still make me feel like that, Squall. It has nothing to do with love, though I used to say it had everything to do with love. You've given that to me, and I want to give that back to you. Somehow."

"Interfering in my love life isn't the way," he says, before he can stop himself. He hears her huff in frustration but she doesn't pull away, placing her hand on his shoulder gently.

"I want to make you happy, and I know that if you let me, I can help you find happiness."

"With my former enemy?"

"I've seen the way you look at each other. I know you both. I know it'll work out, even if you don't. Seifer is... Seifer would be the right choice for you. He's passionate and strong and your equal. You don't have to protect him, he won't rely on you, and he won't take a day when you snap at him as an invitation to fight like I did."

"Rinoa..."

She leans in and kisses him, softly, barely brushing her lips over his. "I won't say anything about it anymore, okay? Not much, anyway. But you'll have to forgive me if I don't stop trying."

He opens his eyes and looks at her, and finds himself smiling just because it's her. "I think I can live with that. If you're not too obvious about it, anyway."

"That's good," she says, smiling in something akin to relief.

There's a moment of silence and then they both return to signing the bits of paper. Squall sighs softly, pushing his hair back, and after a few more minutes of almost comfortable quiet, speaks softly. "Why are you so worried about this quest of Selphie's, anyway? No offence, but... you don't know anything about how it feels not to know who you are, where you come from, whether your parents would be proud or horrified at how you turned out..."

Rinoa shrugs slightly. "I do know what it feels like to not really know my mother. She died when I was young, I'll never know what she thinks of me now unless there is an afterlife. But... it's important to me because I remember the way you looked when you found out Laguna was your father. You were... really happy. I almost suggested we try and find everyone else's parents then, but they all seemed content enough..."

"Probably because they'd never even thought about it."

"Hadn't you ever thought about finding your father and mother?"

Squall wonders, for a moment, if he ever did. He gropes back to the few scattered memories of his childhood; his loves, his joys, his fears, his dreams. Did he ever wonder if his father would come for him? Did he ever think about the softness of his mother's hands, wonder whether once she'd held him with joy and delight, whether she'd comforted him when he cried? Or had he never thought about it? He remembers Seifer saying that his father was a soldier, that his father would be coming back for him. He remembers Quistis – just plain Quissy or Bossy Boots back then – telling Seifer that he was stupid, that he couldn't even remember his father.

He can't remember ever, himself, wondering about his parents. But maybe the Guardian Forces took that, like they take everything in time as their rightful payment for the gift they give.

"Not since I went to Garden, at least," he says, finally. Rinoa puts her hand on his arm again and he shrugs it off, rolling his eyes. "It's okay. I never really thought about it, so I never really got sad about it, either."

"Still..."

Squall shakes his head and, once again, returns to his work. Rinoa works quietly for a moment longer and then bundles the stuff together, hunting for a rubber band and snapping it over the pile, throwing it into his 'finished' tray.

"I hope I get to see the others find their families."

"It seems unlikely," Squall says, wondering what the odds are against it. A hundred to one? More? Probably more. There was Adel, after all, and then their own sorceress war, fought across time, bitter and confusing and heartbreaking. And then there was the sheer likelihood of their parents just not wanting them at all, leaving them at the Orphanage to get on with their own lives. It didn't _have_ to be the Sorceress who'd caused such chaos and loss in their lives, though that would be a handy, easy explanation.

"It's possible, though. You found Laguna."

"Yes," Squall says, and finds himself smiling, as he always does, at the thought of his father, so like him, so unlike him. "I suppose I did. But maybe that just makes the odds for them finding their families again _worse_."

"It shows it's possible," she says, with a true optimistic brightness. She gets up, leaning down to kiss him on the cheek. "I'm going to go now. I have people to talk to, and all that, and another ex-boyfriend I really owe a visit."

"Have fun."

"By the way," she says, turning as she reaches the door. "There's another reason for me to come with you all."

"Oh?"

"Self interest. It's been so boring without you all."

---

Selphie snuggles closer to Irvine, enjoying the warmth of him. He's not a human furnace like some people, but rather just_ warm_, always, in manner and in the feeling of his closeness. He smells of cinnamon and hand lotion and shampoo and she smiles at it all, the comforting feel to it that she has always had in Irvine's presence, for one reason or another.

He shifts slightly, running his hand over her back. "Still awake, darlin'?"

"Yeah," she says, quietly, squirming closer to him – tangling their legs, pressing herself closer to him. The skin of his hands is rough, from his guns, but his touch so soft, so gentle, so soothing, that she could almost believe that he had never killed a person in his life, if she hadn't seen him do it – if she hadn't been there beside him when he did it, if she hadn't, of all things, _helped_ him do it. More than once. She feels she _deserves_ this – _they_ deserve this. The warmth and the comfort after a lifetime of making the best of it, of being alone.

She's so glad they found each other again.

"Can't sleep?"

She shrugs and he hums softly, bumping his nose against hers. "We'll be off tomorrow. Squall will want to go early, I expect, he always does. And we'll have to go and wake Zell up. He won't want to stir before mid day, unless there're hot dogs involved."

Selphie laughs. "Maybe that could be arranged. If I go and get some and you go to wake him, and you promise that I'll meet him in the car park with hot dogs?"

"I think it sounds like a grand idea."

"Then let's go with it," she says, shrugging slightly. She squirms into a more comfortable position, tucking her head under his chin so her skinny body is pressed to his; surrounded, comforted, soothed. It quiets the worries in her, the little insecurities and the uncertainties, the feeling that not all is going to go to plan – that nothing can go according to plan, because it never has before.

"I was surprised Squall even managed to get hold of a car for us, let alone two."

She hums softly, smiles. "He's getting into the whole idea, even if he acts like he isn't sometimes. He'll come around and enjoy it just as much as the rest of us do."

"I'm sure of it," Irvine says, wrapping his arm around her tightly. "That's my Selphie, hmm? Always thinking up wonderful ideas."

"What do you want?" she asks, suspiciously, looking up at him.

"Can't I just flatter you?"

"Usually you have ulterior motives."

Irvine kisses her then, softly, brushing his lips over hers briefly and then deepening it, nipping lightly at her lip and making her make a soft noise, snuggling closer to him than ever and enjoying the feeling of holding, of being held. "How's that for an ulterior motive?"

Her eyes twinkle with fun. "Well… I'd say it's a good one. Excusable. It's not worth me blowing you to smithereens with a rocket launcher, anyway."

"Gee, thanks," he says, drawling the words. And then he kisses her again, concentrates on nothing but, on the softness of her and the strength, how small and fragile he can think she is and how she proves him wrong every time. He smiles and tightens his arms around her, letting himself squeeze that tiniest bit tighter than he thinks he should. And she just smiles.

"Do you think it'll all be… okay?"

He pets her hair, then, feeling it bounce up against his fingers as he smoothes it down. He isn't sure what to say, whether what he has to say will help. Whether pessimism or optimism is right, or whether simply waiting, not really hoping, is the best way. It takes him a while to say _anything_, and when he does, it's quiet.

"I don't know what could go wrong. We might not find anything, or we might find something we don't like, but in the end, we'll have no less than we already have and maybe more."

"You don't really think we'll find anything, do you?"

Irvine speaks softly as he looks into her eyes. Bright eyes, always so bright and happy and now shadowed with too much thinking. He kisses her again, light, soft, coaxing. "We've both been spending too much time with Squall, baby. We've caught the pessimism bug."

"Still, you don't think we'll find anything."

"It's worth trying anyway," he says, and she grins.

"That's supposed to be my line."

He kisses her again by way of giving it back, tucking himself against her, her against himself, so that they fit like bowls stacked together, like they always have. "It's true all the same."

She nods slightly, closing her eyes. "You suggested it. Will you be horribly unhappy if you don't find anything?"

Irvine laughs at the idea of himself being horribly unhappy: Squall is the kind for that, for dark brooding and lingering and thinking over an idea. Irvine lives in the moment, with hopes for tomorrow and regrets for the past, but none more than they're due given how they affect his present. "I'll be fine, I'm sure. How will you feel…?"

"I don't know," she says, surprisingly brittle. He runs his fingers through her hair again, kisses her again, comforting and soothing and meaningful, meaningless, whatever it needs to be.

"We'll always have what we have now."

"We'll always have each other," she agrees, kissing his cheek lightly and closing her eyes again. All of a sudden her voice snaps from dreamy, hopeful, fearful, to a brisker tone, her 'on a quest' tone. The sound of her voice like that always makes him smile. "It's time for us to go to sleep, now."

Irvine closes his eyes, obedient. For a moment, it brings back the Orphanage in surprising detail. The crisp white sheets and the lamp beside the bed, the way Selphie slipped from the girls' room into the boys' room, the way she slipped into bed beside him. They had said they would always be there for each other, and they'd been right, in a sense.

They'd said that they'd never lose each other.

Quietly, Irvine resolves that they never will. 


	4. Chapter Three

Xu rolls her eyes at Quistis as Squall goes through his mental list of important things. He doesn't notice, though, and she manages to nod along seriously enough despite Quistis' quiet laughter. "You'll be able to reach my cell phone if you really need us, too, don't hesitate to ring if you need to." 

Rinoa laughs, slipping her arm through Squall's and nudging him gently. "Xu has been administrating Garden for a long time, Squall. Everything will be just fine, so stop worrying about it. This is supposed to help you relax, not get you all tense like this. Everything will be fine, and if it isn't, yes, she knows how to contact you, but she can probably deal with it just as well on her own."

Squall huffs softly. "Sorry, Xu."

"It's okay."

"You'll be able to reach me, as well," Quistis says, controlling the laughter and looking more serious again. " Holiday or not, if you need us…"

"If we really need you, we won't hesitate to call." Xu rolls her eyes and then smiles as Selphie comes up. "Will you please tell Squall and Quistis to stop being all doom and gloom and destruction? Garden can manage just fine without them, I'm sure. And you all deserve a holiday."

Selphie rolls her eyes. "Come on, guys, stop being like that. We've got to _go_, before Squall puts down roots or something. I'll be driving one car – Irvine and Zell will be with me – and you can have the other, Quisty. You get to have Seifer, Rinoa and Squall with you."

"Why do I get the feeling you're giving me the troublemakers?"

"I'm doing Rinoa a favour."

Quistis raises an eyebrow, but doesn't get chance to ask. Seifer arrives – followed closely, of course, by Raijin and Fujin – and Fujin's voice rings out louder than any other, still as clipped and military as ever. "TAKE CARE."

"I will, Fu," Seifer says, looking amused. Fujin looks startled when he hugs her, quick and tight, but looks pleased, as well, smiling a little as Seifer embraces Raijin – even more briefly, and with some of that we're-men-so-we-have-to-be-masculine embarrassment. "I promise I will."

"Hope ya find 'em, ya know," Raijin says, scratching the back of his head.

Fujin rolls her eyes. "GOOD LUCK. GET GOING."

"Alright, alright," Seifer says, holding his hands up in surrender. The amusement doesn't quite fade from his face as he moves towards the car, raising an eyebrow at Selphie. "Right, you. Which car have you put me in?"

Selphie smiles brightly. "Quisty's. With Squall and Rinoa."

If Seifer is troubled by that, he gives no sign. He just nods and moves closer to the car Quistis stands beside, nodding amicably enough at her and even raising to smiling at Rinoa. He says something teasing to her and she laughs, making a face back at him. Squall rolls his eyes and gets into the car, hoping Rinoa isn't going to force him into sitting next to Seifer.

"We should all sit in the back together," Rinoa says, crawling into the car and smiling brightly at Squall, crushing his hopes of being able to mostly avoid Seifer. Thankfully, though, she's decided to sit in the middle, and he takes that as a hopeful sign, in that she might have given up on her matchmaking.

He rather doubts it, though.

Selphie looks excited as she gets into her car, and Squall can see Irvine saying something teasing to Zell, who obviously isn't taking being up at this time very well. And then Quistis starts the car and they're _off_, and Squall is more glad about that than he thought he'd be. There's something to be said for leaving work and responsibility behind for a little while, especially when you've only been doing it for a little while and can't get used to it.

It's quite a long time before anyone speaks. Rinoa appears engrossed in thought, and Quistis concentrates on driving. Squall's eyes stray to Seifer, flicking over him, watching him as his eyes focus on things outside the window, scenery flicking by. Squall shifts slightly and forces himself to look away from that strong profile, fidgeting a little as he looks out of the window himself. All the land it takes hours to walk over flicks by in a moment of minutes and he sighs softly to himself.

Rinoa nudges him gently, an elbow in his ribs. "No sighing."

"I'm not unhappy," he says, before she can ask him what's wrong. "I'm quite glad to get away from Garden."

"Good," she says, and smiles brightly. "I was getting quite afraid they'd brainwashed you – more than ever, I mean – with the whole work, duty and responsibility thing. It has its place, but you're eighteen, not eighty. You need some _fun_ once in a while."

"I have fun once in a while when I stay in Garden, too," he says, defensively.

"Like what?"

"The Garden festival."

She laughs and elbows him again, looking sparkly, happy, delighted to be with him, delighted to be on the road again. It makes him smile, too, despite himself. "Don't give me that. Even Selphie admits that Garden festivals often cause more trouble than they're really worth. It has to create more work than ever for you. You must have _nightmares_ about paperwork coming to get you."

He has to laugh at that, too, shaking his head. "It's not that bad, but there is a lot of paperwork, I suppose."

Seifer snorts softly. "I remember you with your homework, Leonhart. Even after Quistis' lessons when your bag was so full of stuff it was splitting under the pressure, you never counted it to be 'that bad'."

Quistis huffs softly, listening with half an ear to the conversation. "I didn't set that much homework. Only just before exams, and it always annoyed me, Seifer, that somehow you managed to do those well whilst completely ignoring the homework I'd set you."

He shrugs. "Natural talent, what can I say?"

Rinoa rolls her eyes at him. "He studied more than he's telling. I remember when he was dating me –"

"Ew, did you have to bring that up?"

" – and he'd study for a few hours every day," Rinoa finishes, glaring a little at Seifer for the teasing comments. He smirks at her a little, settling more comfortably into the seat and stretching his long legs out as much as possible.

"So, Leonhart," he says, a little louder, a little more confrontationally. Squall recognises the tone with an inner cringe, sitting up straighter to somehow meet the challenge head on. He keeps his eyes, though, on the scenery outside, the blur of green and grey and blue, grass and trees and mountains and sky.

"What?"

"Why're you on this picnic? I mean, you've found your daddy, yay for you, why do you need to throw everything at Garden over to Xu for a month and come along with us? Don't give me the bullshit excuse that you needed a vacation, either. I know you, you refuse to believe you need a vacation even when you're in desperate need of a few _years_ off. And why are you letting me come along? Apart from not having much of a choice once the human bouncy ball took it into her head that I was welcome."

Squall sighs. "Believe it or not, Seifer, I'm not heartless and I do care about my friends."

"What does that have to do with anything?"

"I've met my father now," he says, softly. He turns from the window to look at Seifer, surprised to see honest curiosity there now and not just anger, not the usual challenging edge that Squall had grown to expect came whenever he was anywhere near him. "I'm glad I have. He's a good person, and he… It's good to know where I came from. I _do_ know, though, what it's like not to know. It doesn't matter, but it does. It doesn't hurt, but at the same time, yeah, maybe it does, just a little, just maybe. When you think about it. I…" He hesitates, now, taking a deep breath and saying it almost defiantly. "I want to help everyone else find out whatever they can. Including you."

Seifer bites his lip. There's a long moment of silence, and Squall turns to look out of the window again, aware that Rinoa is smiling and that Seifer is shocked, stunned, suddenly realising that in the time between that fight between them on that stormy morning and this time right now, he's grown.

"One day, there'll be a plaque put up on the balcony of Garden. 'Commander Squall Leonhart actually smiled here'. But he does smile. And," Rinoa says, softly, looking at Seifer meaningfully, "he does care."

"Apparently so," Seifer says, sounding almost troubled. Squall turns to look at him again, but already, his eyes are focused on something out of the window. Something far away.

---

"Are we there yet?"

"No."

Seifer smirks briefly at Squall, making a move as if to lean forward and then remembering Rinoa, sleeping peacefully on his shoulder, and staying where he is, gently settling her head back into place with a brief look of tenderness. And then he spoils it, looking up with a touch more of the smirk about his face. "Are you sure?"

To her credit, Quistis knows his game, and keeps her temper remarkably well. "Yes."

"Not even near?"

"A few hours away. You _knew_ the journey would be long. We had to get to the ferry point and then get on the ferry, and we were on the ferry for hours, and now we have to drive to almost the other side of Esthar to where Matron is living now. It looks tiny on a map of the world, but even you should have gathered that it takes quite a while in real life," she says, with just the slightest exasperated sigh. He smirks a little, satisfied and not at all offended, settling back properly, knowing now, at least, when to stop.

"Sorry, mommy."

Squall can almost _feel_ Quistis rolling her eyes. He bites his lip to hold back brief laughter, and focusing outwards instead, on the weather outside: rainy, now, with a little patch of sunlight and blue, and a rainbow arching overhead. It's a pretty sight, he supposes, or most people would find it so, but his mind is on something else, something closer.

"So, tell me about your dad, Squally-boy," Seifer says, idly. They both look up at the same moment and their eyes meet, and Seifer _smiles_, just a little, just a tiny bit, and Squall can't help but hope they can be, well, if not friends, then closer than they were, less antagonistic.

"He's a moron," he says, self-consciously, smiling a little as well, smiling more when Seifer actually laughs.

"I've seen him and that's what I thought, but you like him. You don't tend to like morons, Chickenwuss being a notable exception. So I thought there'd be more to it than that."

"He's... he's a nice guy. He acts as if he has no idea what to do, but still he gets things done. He gets into things by accident and somehow they come out okay. People like him, people see him and talk to him and then they'd follow him to the ends of the earth or further. I don't understand it, but..." Squall shrugs, aware that he can't capture Laguna in words like this, annoyed by it and yet unable to do any better. "I'm glad he's my father, and I'm glad we found each other in the end, even if he did leave my mother. I thought I'd be angrier about that, after all, but I can't be angry with him. He just... does things like that without ever meaning any harm."

"I suppose it's good to know your dad is a good guy?"

"Yeah," Squall says, though he never really imagined it any other way, and barely imagined anything at all. "I hope your dad was a good guy, too."

Seifer shrugs slightly, running his fingers through his hair and sighing. "I hope I can find out. Though if he wasn't, I think I'd prefer not to. But I doubt I'll find out anything. Anyway, I'm glad your dad is a good guy and that he cares about you. It could so easily have happened some other way."

Squall bites his lip, and then, quietly, partly because Rinoa is starting to stir, and partly because it sounds so ridiculous for him to say it, he adds, "I hope your family love you. Loved you. Whatever is more relevant."

For a moment, Seifer looks _stung_. He takes a deep breath, looking out of the window as if Squall hit a nerve. Squall wonders what he did, what it is about what he said that caused a problem – because he doesn't want to fight and bicker anymore. He wants to be friends, he _doesn't_ want to see that angry, closed off look falling down over Seifer's eyes anymore. He huffs softly and looks away as well.

"Sorry," Seifer says, after a moment. Neither of them turn to look at each other: Seifer feeling that he can't, that that's too much pride lost, to look his former rival in the eyes and apologise for taking something he said wrongly, Squall feeling that he shouldn't, that this is enough of a surrender for Seifer – perhaps too much of a surrender. He just smiles a bit and nods, barely acknowledging it aloud, and wonders how much Quistis is catching of this conversation, noticing how straight and rigid she sits just in front of him.

Rinoa shifts slightly, making a sleepy sound, and Seifer laughs as she moves her head from his shoulder. "Hey baby, welcome to the waking world."

She huffs softly at him – glaring a little, even, when he ruffles her hair. "Your shoulder is really uncomfortable."  
"I'm awfully sorry, but we can't do refunds."

Rinoa rolls her eyes at him and leans forward, undoing her seatbelt so she can almost move right into the front of the car. She smiles at Quistis, even though she's busy driving and can't see her. "How far away do you think we are?"

"Don't bother asking her, Rin, she's in a mood."

"I am _not_ in a mood," Quistis says, huffing softly. She shifts a little, reaching up to push her hair back from her face and speaking a little louder. "I'd appreciate it if someone else did the driving for a while."

Squall shrugs slightly. "I'll drive."

"I'll stop soon and switch with you," she says. She glances at the map on the front seat beside her, biting her lip for a moment as she works out time and distance. "Rinoa, we'll be there in about two hours, I think. It's been good going so far, I think Selphie's about ten minutes behind us."

"You took a short cut?"

"Just a little one," Quistis says – smiling in a way that's almost pleased, for some reason the others can't understand. Seifer glances at Squall behind Rinoa's back, raising an eyebrow slightly in confusion, wondering why she's so quick to talk to Rinoa when she was short at best with him – even if she wasn't entirely snappish until he started nagging. Squall just shrugs, his eyes on Rinoa's bright, interested expression. He wonders, for a moment, whether it's the joy of being on an adventure again, or whether it's something else. He doesn't know her, her moods and her whims and her dreams, as well as she does him, he quickly realises. He's not sure whether he thinks of that as a bad thing or not.

Women have always, after all, confused him.

"So we'll beat them there?"

"Looks like it."

"It's not a race, but..." Rinoa laughs softly. "It'll be easy to tease Zell about it, though."

Seifer raises an eyebrow slightly. "I thought everyone realised that it's _my_ job to tease the Chickenwuss. I've been making a career out of it for... well, most of his life, after all."

"Oh, I'm not going to impinge on your fun, if you've decided to tease him about it," she promises, laughing.

"I hadn't, but it sounds like a grand idea."

Squall rolls his eyes at Seifer.

---

"I don't get why Selphie and Rinoa arranged it so we're in one room and they're in the other."

Seifer snorts softly and flings a half-contemptuous look at Irvine. "Use your head, cowboy – the one on your shoulders. We have two rooms between the seven of us, and _nobody_ wants to listen to you fucking Selphie. And the room is too small to fit five of us in one room and two in the other, even if it is a close thing. Just live with it and get on in there."

Squall and Zell exchange a glance, and Seifer even catches sight of, of all things, a _smile_ on Squall's face. Zell looks around at Seifer and Irvine for a moment and then sighs exaggeratedly. "Well, as long as Irvine doesn't get too desperate. I mean, I wouldn't want him molesting me. Or either of you, while you're in the same room as me, anyway. I couldn't care less otherwise."

Seifer snorts softly. "You know you want me, Zell."

"What does that have to do with it?"

"You'd be jealous. Do I hear you admitting to a crush, Chickie?"

"No way!" Zell huffs softly. "You'll pay for that, one day, Almasy."

"You're all talk and no action," he replies, comfortably, rolling his eyes at Irvine when he realises he's making no move to go in. "You won't die without sex, Kinneas. Get in there."

Irvine rolls his eyes. "I'll miss Selphie."

"Boo-fucking-hoo. What a wonderful sob story."

Zell and Squall exchange looks again and Seifer is surprised when they both lunge at Irvine, almost picking him up between them and dragging him in. It looks suspiciously like _playing_, with all three of them laughing like that, and playing is something Seifer never pictured Squall doing. Not even when he was a kid, and he's certainly not a kid anymore.

Seifer lets his eyes linger on Squall for a moment, thinking about it. _Certainly_ not a kid anymore, all muscle and height, all six feet and one inch of it. Still not taller than Seifer, but taller than Seifer'd imagined he'd get. He looks _good_, healthy, even happy, especially now that he's been a day away from Garden and paperwork and the relaxation is showing already.

He looks, well – Seifer isn't ready to think about quite how exactly he looks.

Irvine smirks at Squall. "That idea about having five of you in here and just me and Selphie in the other room sounds quite good, really."

"Over my dead body," Zell says, half a growl, though Seifer notices the humour creeping into that. Dincht never could keep a straight face, he remembers. Never ever. He rolls his eyes, watching Squall again as he moves back towards one of the beds – wondering what he's up to, knowing that look of determination even though right now it's more playful than he's ever seen it.

How people do change, he thinks.

He has to laugh when Squall snatches the pillow, flicking it towards Irvine in a neat throw calculated accurately enough that for a moment, Cowboy is eating pillow. Seifer smirks a little at Squall and grabs a pillow of his own. "I figure I should take the losing side, being a noble knight and all," he says, sneering a little at Irvine.

Squall rolls his eyes. "Well, my chances for winning overall just rose."

"Oh, Leonhart?"

It's nothing like their duels, and yet it is: their eyes meeting for a moment, unspoken communication snapping across the space between. And yet now it's full of laughter, softened, by time, and by experience. All that tension between them – Seifer knows, now, why he just _had_ to fight Squall, and he hates himself for being stupid and blind and an idiot.

And the look in Squall's eyes just makes him want to kiss him.

And, of course, they're holding pillows and not gunblades. He has to laugh at the absurdity of it, even as Zell snatches up a pillow and swings it at him – even as his reflexes bring his own pillow up as a shield and he deals Zell a hefty whack on the side of the head. He's sure the pillows won't stand the beating for long, but he's also sure that this is the first time he's really played with any of them, despite having gone to the same Orphanage as them.

It seems like a chance that shouldn't be missed, really.

Squall is next to get a mouthful of Seifer's pillow, and then – of course – its _war _and Seifer finds himself pushed back towards the door. Irvine and Zell stop to watch them, amazed and amused to watch them using gunblade tactics they saw them use during the _real_ war during this little playful skirmish. Amazed and amused to see them smiling, as if they've always been friends.

Squall finds himself thinking that this is how it should have been, even if a part of him that still clings to the way he was before the war tries to tell him that this is stupid – _immature, immature and babyish and pointless_. He thinks he knows now, though. That it doesn't matter whether it's pointless or not, as long as it's actually _fun._

Irvine sits down on the bed with a thump, eyeing the pillows. "I think the pillows are about to split."

For a moment, Seifer and Squall stop, eyeing each other. "Draw?"

Seifer nods slightly, lowering his pillow – cursing softly as Squall smiles _wickedly_ and catches him in the face one more time with his much abused pillow. He's quick to grab Squall, pushing him against the wall and slapping his ass once, quickly, not hard enough to really hurt. "Asshole."

"You always cheated back when we used to fight," Squall says, shrugging. He doesn't move for a moment and Seifer is tempted to smack him again – just for the satisfaction of it.

Zell raises an eyebrow at them. "Can you two keep the kink behind closed doors? In sound proofed rooms? Preferably ones that are also locked?"

For a moment, Squall considers kissing Seifer. He's _right there_, after all. _Right there_, and this could be his one chance, and if Rinoa could see him right now, she'd tell him to. He knows she would, knows she'll roll her eyes at him and make that annoyed, disbelieving face and accuse him of being too scared to take what he wants. And he has to admit there _is _that, that he's worried about losing this sudden unexpected warmth between them that can't yet be put into words. He can wait, for the sake of saving this, until another time when it might be right.

Seifer considers it, too. And then, ashamed of himself for thinking about it in such detail while Squall blinks up at him in almost confusion, he pushes away, going to sit down on one of the beds that aren't already occupied by Irvine or Zell. "I'm having this one."

Squall nods and goes to sit down on the other. Zell fidgets with something for a moment, and then looks up with a grin. "You know, Seifer, you can be surprisingly fun. I mean, just now, that was kind of fun and I never expected you'd act like that, I didn't think… I mean, no offence, but…"

Seifer rolls his eyes. "You're surprised about _me_ acting like that?"

"We've got used to Squall surprising us," Irvine says, as Squall rolls his eyes.

After another moment of silence, Seifer sighs, shrugging slightly. "I admit, I've always been a bit of an asshole, always had something to prove to the world and made an ass out of myself doing it, I know. I don't… Can we forget about that and start over?"

Squall's response is instantaneous. "Yes."

Irvine nods slightly, glancing at Squall in surprise at the quick answer, and Zell takes a moment longer, looking as if he wants to say no, but somehow can't bring himself to with Seifer sat there looking so serious and so apologetic. Finally he nods. "Yeah. But let's not go through the whole introductions rigmarole again."

Seifer snorts softly.

Squall gets up, undoing his belts and starting to get ready for bed. Seifer looks away from him quickly, though all he wants to do is watch, watch him get undressed, remind himself of every line of Squall's body and commit it to memory for when he's alone. He keeps looking away, even when Squall speaks. "We all know what happened, and we all know why. It's time we forget it all."

Seifer does look, then. And they smile at each other.

Irvine and Zell raise their eyebrows at each other. 


	5. Chapter Four

"Selphie, s'too early."

"Nuh-uh, princess, we've got to get an early start." Selphie bounces a little on the end of Rinoa's bed, effectively completely disrupting any attempts at getting back to sleep and looking overly happy about it. Once Rinoa sits up, she gets off, grinning at her. "Wake Quisty up for me, will you? She'll be easy to wake, but I want to go see Irvy."

Rinoa smiles sleepily and nods, running her fingers through her hair. Selphie is gone almost immediately, leaving Rinoa to stretch and yawn and get her eyes clear of sleep at a slower – more civilised – pace. She's never understood how Garden managed to train all of them into getting up at ridiculous times of morning and not complaining about it when they did. After a moment, she gets out of bed, wincing at the cold air from the wide open window – another SeeD tactic to wake lazy civilians up, she's sure.

"Quistis?"

"Mmm?" Quistis' voice is thick with sleep, but she's already stirring, stretching out. Rinoa wriggles her toes, snatching the duvet off her own bed and wrapping herself in it as she goes to close the window.

"Selphie says it's time to get up."

Quistis made an indeterminate sound, sitting up a little and glancing at the clock. "It's early, for you."

Rinoa huffs softly, closing the window with a small thump and then sitting back on her bed, shivering despite the duvet wrapped around her, still cosy with warmth from her body. "That's probably why Selphie felt it necessary to open the curtains, open the window, and bounce on my feet until I woke up."

Quistis stifles a laugh and she rolls her eyes, sticking her tongue out at the blonde.

"It's not funny."

"Of course not," she agrees, slipping out of bed and kneeling down to rifle through her bag in search of clothes and her hairbrush. Rinoa sighs and follows her example after a moment, still wincing as she sheds her warm shell of duvet.

"Guess what, guys?"

Quistis looks up at Selphie's bright, pleased face and raises an eyebrow slightly. "I have a feeling you're going to tell us anyway and I don't think Rinoa is awake enough yet for guessing games. What is it?"

Selphie huffs softly but crosses the room to drag things out of her bag, kicking the door shut behind her. "Well... since Irvine and Zell were sharing a room with Seifer and Squall last night, they were worried they'd fight or something. Or Irvine was, anyway. Zell was more worried that Seifer was going to fight with _him_, probably. Anyway..."

"It went okay?"

Selphie raises an eyebrow at Rinoa's unexpected interest, and then nods. "Yeah! Apparently they were playing – they had a _pillow fight_, all four of them, how come we didn't do anything like that? – and after Seifer just _apologised_. I never thought he was the kind of guy who _could_, you know. No regrets and the present is all that matters, stuff like that."

Quistis laughs. "Seifer is full of surprises; even if you have some grounds for saying you know him. I taught him and I can't claim to know much about him. Squall probably knows him best."

"That doesn't really make sense."

"You heard of the old saying, 'know your enemy'?" Quistis shrugs. "They know each other, as well as anyone knows them, and probably, like I said, better."

"I never thought about it that way," Rinoa says, slowly, and then shrugs. "So they've made friends? Agreed not to fight?"

Selphie nods a little, grinning. "That's really going to make this whole thing easier, isn't it? Or at least, less likely to end with us breaking up a fight between them and taking one of them to hospital because of it. Or both of them. Wasn't that the idea when you wanted me to put them in the same car, Rin?"

"Kind of," she says, finding her brush and busying herself with brushing out her hair, finding all kinds of knots in it and wincing a little, focusing on that as the other two start to get ready. She wonders what Squall is thinking, how he feels about being friends with Seifer, and hopes that this is the first step of a few more for him. "I thought they might end up being a little more than friends, though."

"You mean lovers? Seifer and Squall? Hang on, wait, is that why you broke up with Squall? Because he's gay?"

Rinoa sighs softly. "Yes, he is gay. It took him a while to figure it all out, I think. It wasn't really messy, I think I more than half suspected it already. What's it they always say, 'all the nice guys are gay'? Don't say anything about it to him, please. I don't know if he'd actually want you to know. He wasn't really happy with telling me."

Quistis makes a thoughtful sound, nodding slightly. "I never really thought about Squall dating anyone, before you, I mean. I taught him and... Well, I thought I had a crush on him but he wasn't at all interested in me. I thought he might be asexual."

"Because anyone who isn't attracted to you must not be attracted to anyone?"

She rolls her eyes. "Well, I'm used to getting _some_ interest."

Selphie laughs again and then turns to Rinoa, raising an eyebrow at her. "I don't get it, though. Seifer and Squall? How's that going to work? They've been fighting most of their lives. I still can't remember most of the stuff that happened at the Orphanage and even I remember that they were always fighting, always bickering."

She shrugs again. "Like Quistis said, they know each other. I think they suit each other – and I've dated both of them, so I do know what they're like. I think they'll be perfect together if only they can put aside their differences and resolve their difficulties and just stop being too stubborn for their own goods."

"What about Seifer, though? I don't think _he's_ gay."

Rinoa shrugs slightly. "I don't either. I didn't really date him long, all things considered, so we didn't, you know, do much? So I have no idea if he's at all attracted to women, really. But I'm pretty sure he _is_ attracted to Squall, judging from what he said to me when I suggested it. I think he's probably bisexual. Anyway, I _think_ this is going to work out."

Selphie looks doubtful. "You really think so?"

"It's worth a try, right?"

"What is?"

Rinoa jumps a little when Seifer sticks his head around the door and huffs softly at him. "You should knock first, Selphie and Quistis are –"

Seifer makes a face when he registers how little all three are wearing and winks at Rinoa. "Ew. I think I'll go away now. I've definitely learned my lesson. That is way too much skin on show."

They can hear him complaining about 'shameless hussies' to Zell in the next room, interspersed with moments when Zell obviously gets less tolerant of being called Chickie. Selphie huffs softly and puts a hand on her hip. "I'm not exactly ugly, you know. Seeing me in my bra and knickers can't be _that_ bad an experience. Irvine certainly seems to enjoy it, anyway."

Quistis rolls her eyes. "I think Rinoa's wrong, he is gay."

"He dated Rinoa."

"So did Squall."

Selphie thinks about that for a moment and then shrugs, laughing. "Poor Rinoa, always turning her boyfriends gay. And being so nice to them afterwards, even trying to get them together. You're a saint, Rin."

She shrugs as well. "They never did anything wrong and they could never be happy with me, I wasn't right for them and I think we knew that before we even tried, in both cases. But I think they _could_ be happy with each other and since I'm fond of them both… it's hardly saintly to try and do my best to get them together. I mean, I will be expecting at least a commendation if I get them together, but…"

"Still," Selphie says, shrugging slightly, "it is pretty nice of you to try to get them together when they're both grouchy old grumps who apparently ignored a mutual attraction in favour of fighting each other for years. I mean, geez."

Rinoa laughs. "I suppose so."

Quistis looks up at Rinoa and smiles slightly. "I never realised you knew that you and Squall weren't meant to be. Before you broke up with him, I mean."

"I wanted a fairytale," she says, quietly, "I wanted to be protected, to be safe. I don't want it like that anymore. I mean, I love to be with him, on this quest with him, but it's not all about him, and it never should have been. Still," she says, suddenly smiling, "I'm not saying that I didn't enjoy it while it lasted."

Selphie grins. "I like you better now."

"Me too," she says, glancing at Quistis. But Quistis doesn't say anything.

---

She smiles when she sees them, shading her eyes from the sun and looking them over, her tone gentle, her words teasing. "What do you lot want?"

"Matron," Seifer says, quietly. For a moment Squall's afraid he's going to freak out or something, flashback to the memories of the war and all the horrors Squall is sure he suffered, under the eyes of a woman who looked as if she was the only mother he'd ever known. It has to be hard to forget, Squall thinks. Suffering like that at all, let alone with the vague memory of waking up from nightmares to that face, sympathetic then and turned dark and horrible. But Matron smiles and Seifer smiles and all of a sudden they're hugging, like they've never been any other way, and Squall feels so relieved he might be sick.

"It's good to see you again, Seifer," she says, softly, just for him to hear.

For a moment she feels the irrational urge to never let him go, to keep him close to her. To keep him safe, as if she could do that now when she failed so miserably before. She can feel tenseness in him that she hates, knowing she's caused it, simply by looking so similar to the way she'd looked when she was a puppet and Ultimecia had pulled the strings. But there's comfort in it, too. Seifer's hug is careful and tentative, but _warm_. She knows he's forgiven her, never thought there was anything that needed to be forgiven. There's something about that idea that makes her smile, something given that's better than any material thing.

They part smiling, and Edea remembers why she always did love Seifer, even though he was a pain. His smile is honest, open; she never knew why he hid it away and used a smirk instead. She puts a hand on his arm for a moment, looking him over, and then smiling a little more. "Smile like that more often, okay?"

"I'll try," he replies softly, bending for a moment to kiss her cheek lightly. "It's good to see you, Matron."

He steps away and she resists the urge to frown, turning her attention now to the other children. Children, she thinks, but they're not children anymore and haven't been for a long time. Squall is less serious than the last time she saw him, at least, a smile on his lips – perhaps amusement, but it looks more like _relief_. She catches his eyes on Seifer and smiles one of those smiles that all mothers have. Knowing. Oh, so knowing.

Quistis. Selphie. Irvine. Zell. The first calm and cool and collected, Selphie grinning like it's a party, Irvine smiling in that lazy way that Edea has no doubt has stolen many hearts – and lastly, Zell, looking just a little tense, relaxing when he catches her eyes and she smiles at him. She hugs him first.

"Is everything okay?"

"Just fine," he tells her, squeezing her tightly. She's used to Zell's hugs by now, since she became herself again, and she just squeezes back until he lets go, letting her step back. And then Selphie dives on her, her hug greedy and tight in almost the same way as Zell's, so that Edea has to smile, holding the girl close for a moment.

"Everything going well, Selphie?"

"Perfectly," the bouncy girl assures her. She, like Seifer, kisses Edea on the cheek again before pulling back, grinning at all and sundry. Edea notices Rinoa, then, hanging back – not exactly shy, but tentative all the same. She smiles at her; too, regretting that most of the experience Rinoa has had of her has not been of _her_. There're things she'd like to tell the young sorceress, but...

Squall moves a little closer, hesitant, as if almost afraid to touch her. She gives him a moment and then moves closer herself, putting her arms around him and pulling him to her, so that his cheek rests against her shoulder. "You've been so brave," she tells him, quietly, "I'm so proud of you. You've been strong on your own."

"I never needed to be," he says, sighing a little.

She nods. "But still, you were. You've done wonderfully. Now you have friends – hold onto them, Squall."

"I will," he says, smiling self consciously. His eyes flick over to Seifer for a moment and Edea holds back a moment of almost childish glee. She's wanted them to be friends for as long as she's known them, since Squall first sulkily rejected Seifer's friendship.

"Him especially," she says, and regrets it, but Squall just smiles.

"I will."

Quistis comes to her then, the hug restrained and adult for a moment, giddily childish for the moment after that. Edea holds her carefully, amused by the contrast of eagerness and restraint, fragility and strength. She knows Quistis well even now, the way she is always devoting herself to duty and responsibility and always wanting _more_, and only sometimes, just sometimes, reaching out to take what she wants. "It's so nice to see you, Matron."

"What is it you're wanting and not getting this time?" she asks, softly, as Quistis begins to disengage. For a moment, she almost expects that flicker of the gaze – from her face to the face of someone Quistis wants. But it doesn't happen. Quistis just smiles and shrugs.

"For me to know, Matron."

"I hope I will find out."

The hug with Irvine is brief, and Edea finds herself immensely glad for him, for them all, happy or at least on their way to it, grown up or at least mostly there.

"What are you all here for, then?" she asks, when she draws back, looking around at them all. "I'm here to get away from Garden – as far away as I can – and here you all are, coming to me."

"It's not them you were avoiding," Rinoa says, quietly. She smiles a little, shrugging. "That's obvious enough from the happy greeting you've given them."

"No. But what they stand for..." Edea shrugs, a movement that is strangely graceful, as if an awkward movement wouldn't fit on her slender frame even now, as she gets a little older, a little less regal. "That I don't need to have anything to do with now. My turn to affect the world is gone now."

"It's never entirely gone," Seifer says, and then laughs. "But you've formed us all and sent us out, for good or for bad, so you've made your mark on the world."

"None of my mark has been bad," Edea reminds him, knowing that he still struggles with that. Why was he chosen? What did he do? Was he, somehow, at the core of him that even he denied, evil? Was it all his fault somehow, some way? She knows that he still can't sleep some nights because of that question. She knows that he still struggles with it, staring at his ceiling, staring at the walls, wondering if he should be counting cracks in the ceiling of some damp prison cell.

He doesn't reply aloud. He just shrugs a little, looking away from her. She catches Squall smiling at him and has to smile herself at the little dance between them, their little game of push and react. She hopes it'll end in a truce, this time, instead of one of them winning, always winning.

"Anyway! You wanted to know why we're here, right, Matron?" Selphie grins a little. "We're on a quest this time – not quite as momentous and world changing as the last one, you're probably glad to know. We're searching for our parents, whoever they might have been. Since Squall managed to find Sir Laguna and he wasn't even looking, we thought that if we tried…"

Edea frowns a little. "I certainly think it's possible for some of you, but I don't advise you all to. You might find out things you don't want to know, uncomfortable things. I don't want any of you to get hurt. It's better to be happy and not know than to know and feel bad about it."

Zell raises an eyebrow. "I think I'd rather know, personally."

She eyes him for a moment and then nods, taking a deep breath. "Some of you have your real surnames, others were from the people who found you or adopted you. Zell, your surname wasn't Dincht when you came to me. I can find your father's details for you, but I don't advise you to go."

"I've come this far, I have to know," Zell says, shrugging slightly, without a second thought. Edea bites her lip, hoping he won't regret that – clinging to the reminder that he won't blame her for what happens, no matter what _does_ happen.

"I'll find those for you a little later. I have a file with them in. Quistis… I met your mother, once. She only told me that she'd come a long way and that she needed to leave you somewhere. Somewhere…" Edea pauses as she remembers that face, like Quistis' face and not like. "Somewhere _safe_, she said."

Quistis looks a little pale. "Do you think she was in trouble?"

"I don't know. I do know that Trepe was your father's surname. She was quite clear about that."

Quistis nods, shifting slightly and looking away, as if she's trying to process that information. Edea remembers the desperation in that woman's eyes, her refusal to talk about anything, the way she had said that it would be dangerous and the way the woman had laughed, the way she'd said she could take care of herself that had left Edea with no doubt that the woman would get where she wanted to go, wherever that might be.

The strength of the mother has, at least, come out in the daughter. Edea glances at Seifer, feeling an ache of worry for him, knowing how he must be feeling about this. He always dreamed of his parents coming to get him. He'd tell her about what his father must have been like, and she'd tell him what little she knew. That he was a soldier, a good one, who'd gone to war to help provide for his family. A good man. She'd always been sad that she knew little more, and now she is even more shamed by it. She's always had so little to give Seifer, and she could've had more.

"I don't know much about your family, Seifer. I know what time they came from and that you, too, have your father's surname. I never met your mother, but a friend of mine was friends with her and from all I heard she was a good woman. She didn't... from what I know of her she would never have abandoned you."

Seifer nods slightly, taking a deep breath. "Any leads you have for me would be appreciated."

"I'll do my best," she promises.

"What about us?" Irvine asks, softly, his arm around Selphie. Her head is against his shoulder and it makes Edea sigh to see them. They were always together, back when they lived in the Orphanage. Always together, and otherwise alone. Selphie had been crying when she first arrived at the Orphanage, and Irvine had put his arms around her, told her that it was better to smile, with a wisdom Edea hadn't expected from one of the kids under her care. If you don't laugh, he'd said, you have to cry. You've got to let it out somehow.

"I'm sorry," she says, hating it, "I don't know anything about your parents. I'm not even sure where you were found. The people who brought you both to me – at different times – didn't say. They were in a hurry to go."

Selphie tries not to look too disappointed. Edea sees it, and wants to hug her, hold her, and take that place of mother again in her heart. But she has Irvine for comfort, his arms tight around her slender body, and so Edea leaves them be, turning to the others.

"I'll do what I can and look in my records for anything I can find that might help you. For now… would you all like a drink?"

Seifer follows her into the kitchen as she goes to get drinks, the other kids – but not kids now, of course – filing into the main room and finding places to sit. For a while, he doesn't speak, and Edea puts the kettle on and pours juice and digs out the sugar, listening to the vague drone of voices from the other room, feeling Seifer watching her.

"Will you forgive me for everything that happened to you?" she says, finally.

"Was there ever anything to forgive?"

She puts the milk down and he comes around the kitchen counter to hug her again. For a while, she lets him just hold her, her face against his shoulder, lets herself imagine that it is just her and him, just herself and her son.

Finally, she pulls away, wiping her eyes a bit. The kettle has boiled. She pours drinks, and Seifer carries them in to the others.

---

Rinoa watches Quistis for a moment, staying in the shelter of the door and eyeing the way the wind whips her friend's hair about. She looks lovely like this, she thinks, cold and alone and perhaps a little fragile, and completely lovely. For a while, she stays still to watch her, leaving her alone with her thoughts. Finally, though, she steps out of the relative warmth of the doorway, letting the door close behind her.

"It's a windy day," she says, quietly. "Don't you want to put a coat on or something?"

Quistis looks up, obviously startled – although Rinoa suspects that she did realise she was being observed. Squall always knew, whether he bothered to talk to her or not, when she was watching him. She knows somewhat of the instinct herself, that crawling feeling on the back of her neck when she knows someone's eyes are on her. But SeeDs have developed it to an insane level, she thinks.

There was no way Quistis really didn't know she was standing there. She's shivering a little, now, but her smile is warm when she turns to Rinoa. "I'm not that cold."

"You SeeDs are all the same," Rinoa says, without really meaning to. "You always seem to deny when you really want or need something. Like it'd be a weakness to give into it, even just once in a while. Squall is the worst, of course, but all of you, even Selphie and Irvine, do it. I've never understood it."

"Military discipline," Quistis replies, simply. Her eyes are still far away, Rinoa realizes, full of thought. As if she was looking for something in the storm – waiting, perhaps, for answers that never come. Rinoa remembers nights like that spent in the cold – wrapped up in a coat, of course, and with Watts or Zone always with her – nights spent trying to figure out what to do. What _she_, herself, really wanted or needed to do in a certain situation.

"Military discipline," she repeats, sighing softly.

"We're all soldiers. We need to be trained to deal with even extreme circumstances. Cold is nothing to a soldier. Selphie and Irvine can do it as well as the rest of us, when they have to, it's just they don't tend to. Maybe they just never had as much reason to take the training as far as the rest of us. Either way, I'm used to this."

Rinoa smiles gently. She wants to say something about how alone, how unhappy, Quistis must have been, but she hasn't the words for that or the understanding. She knows that Quistis would only shrug, perhaps roll her eyes, and ignore her. Make her feel like an undisciplined child again. She hated that. She hated that the most when it came from _Quistis_. So she keeps her words simple, quiet, ignorable. "You're shivering, Quistis."

Quistis laughs softly, rolling her eyes. "It doesn't negate my point, you know."

"You don't have to act tough all the time, is all I'm saying," she says, shrugging slightly. For a moment they stand in silence, both shivering now as the cold wind teases its way in through their clothes. Rinoa doesn't want to move, somehow, despite that.

"Don't you want to go inside?"

"I will in a minute." Rinoa takes a deep breath, pushing her hair back a little and turning into the wind so that her hair isn't constantly blowing into her mouth. "How're you feeling? I mean, we've got leads for Seifer and Zell, and a bit of one for you."

"Curious. And," she shrugged, "worried, as well, I guess."

"Try not to worry about it too much. Try and just, you know, enjoy it. Appreciate the fun in all of it and don't hope for too much. I mean, it'd be great to find your family again, but it doesn't seem all that likely to happen."

"No, it doesn't."

Rinoa smiles again, trying to urge Quistis into a less thoughtful, less melancholy frame of mind. "I'm glad this isn't all serious like the fight against Ultimecia was. The fun parts are more fun now, and the serious parts, well, less serious."

Quistis nods slightly. "I suppose you would find it fun. You haven't really got anything at stake."

"You haven't either. Nothing to lose, anyway."

"Is that what you think?"

Rinoa stays quiet for a moment, wondering what Quistis means. It's true that, perhaps, Quistis _might_ have something to lose, she realizes. Childhood dreams about her parents, perhaps, or some kind of knowledge that she could be something more. Maybe she'll find out that the parents she imagined, the kind and loving parents, abandoned her.

"I'm sorry," she says, finally. Quistis shrugs slightly.

"It's not like fighting Ultimecia," she says, softly, "but it does seem a little more hopeless."

Rinoa has to laugh. "Oh, Quistis, are you mercenaries trained to be pessimistic as well as heartless and too tough for your own good?"

She regrets the words as soon as they're out of her mouth. She doesn't believe that any of them are heartless, and certainly not Quistis. She's seen Quistis alive with emotion, alight with laughter, flushed with victory, and with her eyes full of tears at a needless death. She's seen her at the depths and heights, seen them all _feel_ and laugh and live and love like everyone else. She hates herself for saying something as stupid as assuming that they're heartless.

"I didn't mean it like that."

Quistis shrugs slightly, her eyes now a little pained. "I'm sure you're right, to some extent."

"Quistis –"

"I'll come in soon. In a minute. You'd best go in and get warm."

Rinoa flinches a little, imagining that as a kind of reprimand. She's been shivering more in the last few minutes than before. Finally, she looks away from Quistis and nods, moving to go inside. Quistis stands out in the cold for a moment longer. She realizes that Rinoa is hurt, that she feels criticized. She clenches her fists.

"Why can't I ever say the right thing to her?" 


	6. Chapter Five

"Shit, I'm nervous." 

Selphie pats Zell's arm, looking amused, though not outright laughing – because ridiculous as he's acting, Zell is completely serious, his normal smiling expression more of a frown today, pulling his tattoo into an unfamiliar formation. "It'll be alright, Zell. It can't be that bad – it's your _dad_. And you'll have your adoptive mother anyway, even if this comes out all pear shaped, and she won't hold a grudge. I bet she already understands why you have to do this."

"I hope so," Zell says, sighing heavily. He puts his head in his hands. " Irvine, how far away are we?"

"We've got few hours to go, actually, so I'd say pretty far."

"Fuck."

"Zell, this doesn't really matter all that much anyway. Everyone who matters, you already know. Matron and Ma Dincht. You have a family even if your real one turns out to have disowned you or whatever."

Zell looks up at Selphie and gives her a grateful smile, running his fingers through his hair and messing it all up hopelessly. "I wish I could be as confident about all this as you are. You seem to have it all figured out, me… I always just… Well, I'm not ready for this, anyway. I have no idea what I'm going to say _now_, how am I going to figure out to say when I'm with the guy?"

Irvine glances away from the road for just a moment, smiling reassuringly at Zell. "Maybe you won't need to? Maybe it'll happen naturally."

"I hope so."

Selphie pats him on the shoulder again, smiling encouragingly. "I'm confident enough for both of us, anyway. All of us. It'll be fine. Just remember he'll probably be as awkward as you. Don't expect too much. But I bet he'll be so proud of you. I mean, you saved the world."

"_Helped_ save the world."

"Making yourself sound more important than you were is a wonderful skill. It works every time on girls."

Selphie eyes Irvine carefully. "Exactly how much of what you've told me is a lie?"

"I don't mean you," Irvine says, shrugging slightly. He smiles, casting a glance back at her as well. "You're my angel. I couldn't lie to you."

Selphie can't help but smile and Zell huffs softly, rolling his eyes. He settles back to look out of the window, ignoring all their sap as much as possible, until the sound of their voices is nothing but a mildly annoying backdrop. He manages to zone out like that for a while, before he thinks of where exactly they're headed, what exactly he's planning on doing there.

"Shit."

Irvine snorts softly, breaking off his conversation with Selphie. "Seriously, Zell. We're still quite a long way away, and there's no need to worry too much about it now. Just… try and relax. Don't get your expectations up. Try not to expect _anything_. If you keep thinking it's going to go badly, it _will_ go badly."

Zell rolls his eyes. "The power of negative thinking?"

Irvine shrugs. "Don't want to push your luck, do you?"

"What if I think it's going to go really well?"

"Then you might be disappointed."

Zell thinks that over for a moment and then snorts softly. "So the power of positive thinking doesn't apply?"

"I think positive thinking helps. Just be careful of expecting too much or worrying that it'll be useless, okay? If you go into it all emotional and worried about it, _something_ is bound to happen and it's more likely to be a bad thing. This guy hasn't seen you since you were a tiny baby, he doesn't know you; he might not even acknowledge you're his son."

"You're optimistic."

"Realistic."

Zell sighs softly and shifts around restlessly. "It's alright for you, you're so laid back you're practically asleep half the time. I've never known you to get stressed out over something like I do."

"Then you don't know me that well," Irvine says, quietly, but he's smiling.

There's a long silence after that. Selphie looks out of the window, watching the scenery with a kind of delight on her face akin to the look she gets when she's on trains. Zell watches her for a while with some amusement, but when they get to an area that's mostly grassland, she turns back and settles in her seat properly with a soft huff. "This is boring."

"Nerve wracking."

"I'm tired, my neck is aching and I hate driving on grass. But," Irvine says, smiling a little, "I'm not complaining. So find something to do, Selphie, and keep Zell occupied for a while. Play 'I spy' or something."

Selphie looks out of the window again and rolls her eyes. "I spy with my little eye something beginning with 'g'."

"Grass."

Irvine sighs softly. "I guess there isn't much else, is there?"

"Nope."

There's silence again for a while. Zell shifts uncomfortably and finally settles down as if to sleep, but he's nowhere near calm enough for that. At some point between eating breakfast and setting off, someone transformed his guts into a mess of snakes or something, because now they're twisting round each other in a most distracting way.

He's pretty sure that if he fell asleep, he'd dream of something ridiculous or something. It happened the night before his SeeD exam, he remembers. He'd gone to sleep a mess of nerves and woken up not sure whether to laugh, cry or get himself psycho-analysed. He shifts slightly.

"Sel? What's the weirdest dream you've ever had?"

"Me? Umm… I never really remember my dreams." She frowns, bringing her knees up to her chest and hugging them. "Irvy?"

"Ummm… are you sure you want to know?"

Zell snorts softly. "Asking that just makes me more curious."

Selphie laughs. "Just tell me. As long as it's not like, I don't know, you having sex with something really weird."

Irvine pauses for a moment and then grins. "Well, yeah, it is. Okay then, I think it's Zell's turn to tell us."

Zell snorts softly, shaking his head. "I'm even more curious now. I'm not going to tell until you do. If Selphie really doesn't want to hear, she can… I don't know, block her ears. _I_ want to know, even if it's really weird. Because mine is really, really weird. I never have fun dreams about sex."

"My dream wasn't really fun," Irvine says, biting his lip. He's laughing, a little, his eyes bright with it.

Selphie rolls her eyes. "Come on. Just tell us now you've got us both so curious!"

"Well… I was having sex with this girl. Really cute girl. This was back before I met you, anyway, Selphie. She was on, I don't know, the library committee or something? She was kind of geeky but cute. Anyway, I had this dream and I was having sex with her and boom, all of a sudden…"

"You woke up?"

Irvine shakes his head, looking amused again. "It wouldn't have been weird if I woke up, I always _do_. It's always really disappointing, but not all that unexpected. I guess my subconscious mind isn't as dirty as my conscious mind."

Zell rolls her eyes. "Get to the point. What happened?"

"She kinda turned into an octopus. I don't know, something with tentacles, anyway. And suckers. And she was sort of purple. And the really weird thing was, in the dream, I didn't really think it was weird. She was just sort of clinging to me and… ugh." Irvine shudders a little. "I had a phobia of sex for a while after that."

"For all of ten minutes, no doubt," Zell mutters

Irvine laughs.

Zell grins at him a little. "Anyway, I don't think your dream is weirder than mine, really. It sounds like you were dreaming about the average sort of library girl, at least when you're late with returning a book."

"Zell!" Selphie huffs softly. "You _dated _a girl from the library!"

Zell rolls his eyes at Selphie, looking exasperated, half joking, half resenting the reminder about that particular incident. Which was more of a flat-out _fiasco_ than an incident. Or perhaps more of a flat-out _flop_, because it hadn't really gone anywhere. At all. At any point. "She was a Balamb Garden library girl. That was different. And I dated her for, what, _two weeks_?"

Selphie gives him a withering look for as long as she can manage, and then falls back on her usual smile, getting more comfortable. "So, what about this weird dream of yours? Tell us about it, now Irvine told you all about his!"

"Well… I was really nervous. I always have weird dreams when I was nervous – and they can be, you know, nightmares, or just really freaky ones so I wake up and wonder what the fuck is wrong with me. Anyway, it was the night before the field exam, and they don't tell you in so many words what's going to happen, but the rumour gets around somehow. So I was having trouble sleeping, wondering what exactly we'd have to do, and…"

"Get to the point," Irvine said, helpfully, sounding amused.

Zell rolls his eyes. "Right, right. At first it was okay, it was like I'd woken up and it was the day of the SeeD exam. But at the point where everyone usually goes to the Fire Cavern to persuade Ifrit to give them his power, instead Quistis took me – and Seifer and Squall – to this shop and made us pick these weird outfits."

Selphie snorts softly. "Weird outfits? Like what?"

"Like… dresses."

She puts a hand over her mouth, now, to avoid laughing too much at the expression on Zell's face – but can't help letting a giggle escape when she spots Irvine's expression, studiously serious, him nodding along and making encouraging noises, looking almost like a psychiatrist listening to a difficult case.

Zell glares at them both a little. "I tell you, it was really freaky. They were… all frilly and shit. And feathers. Feathers at the back. And then Quistis told us that we'd have to _wear_ them, on stage, and _dance_ in them. These girly dresses. So, uh, I said _no way_ but Seifer and Squall didn't seem to care. And Seifer called me a wuss. So Quistis dragged me along and made me put on this dress thing –"

"Kinky," Irvine says, getting another giggle out of Selphie. Zell glares at him a bit.

"And then I woke up and thought _what the fuck_ and I wondered if maybe I needed to see Kadowaki and get myself declared mentally unstable."

"Your case is a difficult one," Irvine says, still straight-faced, "but I wouldn't lose all hope yet. Perhaps a therapeutic re-enactment of the dream would – whoa there, Zell!"

Zell kicks the back of Irvine's chair once more, hard, just to hear Irvine yelp again, and then settles back down.

"At least that distracted you from thinking about your father, huh?" Selphie says, brightly.

Zell groans.

---

He takes a deep breath before he knocks on the door. If he looks back, the car is waiting there; Selphie, clenching her fists with hope and excitement and encouragement, all on his behalf, and Irvine, leaning back in his seat and stretching his long legs out, watching him with that lazy smile of his that turns anyone's legs to jelly, regardless of gender and sexual orientation.

That's pretty much all the encouragement he needs to knock on the door. Besides the thought of Seifer calling him a wuss if they get back to the others without him actually having spoken to his father after this insanely long journey to get here. He knocks as hard as he can and then winces, thinking that it might be considered rude.

He has to wait quite a long time for someone to come to the door. He's about to knock again – or give up – when he hears heavy footsteps beyond the door and drops his hand, frozen in place with nerves. The darn snakes in his guts still aren't letting up.

"Hello?" the man grunts. "Who're you and what d'you want?"

"Hi, uh. I'm… well, how long have you lived here? I mean, if you've been here for a long time, I think I'm your son. I was adopted. Uh. Sent to Edea Kramer's Orphanage when I was very young. But if you've just moved here in the last few years, then I guess I'm nothing to do with you, really. My name is Zell. Zell Dincht."

On a whim, he put his hand out to the guy, hoping he'd shake it, _something_ to break the all too apparent ice between them. He can almost _hear_ Selphie breathlessly cheering him on.

"I did have a son," the man says, slowly. "Scrawny little thing. Cried a lot. I didn't really care for him; his mother dumped him with me, the little bitch. Said she couldn't take care of him and that I was the father, I should look after him. I sent him to some relations for a while, but they must've got sick of his crying, too, because he ended up in an orphanage. His name might've been Zell. I don't know. Never had much time for the brat."

Zell takes a deep breath, somewhat disconcerted by the man's attitude. He wonders whether he really _can_ be this man's son. He wonders what his mother – his _possible_ mother – must've thought, dumping him with this guy. He wonders whether she loved him at all, whether she honestly thought she was doing the best thing for him by giving him to this guy. Or whether she just wanted to be rid of him, whether she just wanted to get some kind of small revenge on an ex-lover.

He takes another deep breath. "Well, uh, I've been looking for my parents. My real parents, obviously. And Matron – the woman who looked after me when I was in the Orphanage, you know – found this address in her records about where I came from. So. Uh…"

The guy doesn't look like him at all, he thinks. His eyes, maybe, the same kind of colour, the hair the same kind of blond. But he's all gone to fat, if there was much muscle there to begin with, and his expression is unfriendly. Zell gets the feeling he doesn't smile at much and if he does, it's at someone else's discomfort.

Still. Irvine and Selphie warned him not to judge too quickly. He has to give the guy a chance. Maybe he's just grumpy at being disturbed, at the reminder of his perhaps not too happy past. Zell smiles as best he can.

"I was hoping to talk to you a bit, anyway. Assuming you _are_ my father."

"I've lived in this house all my life," the man says, grudgingly. "So I guess you must be my son. I always thought a son of mine would look less… like a pansy. You look as if you couldn't fight your way out of a paper bag."

Zell's eyes narrow a little. He wants to defend himself. He wants to say, _I'm a SeeD, a class A SeeD. One of the best. I fought against the sorceress in the last war. I'm the reason you get to sit around and complain about your life, instead of spend your life as a slave to Ultimecia, beaten all the time, whimpering and whining and doing your best, every day, so you don't get killed. _

He looks back at the car, waiting for him. Irvine nods at him slightly, encouraging, but not really helpful. Selphie makes a tiny gesture at him, urging him to turn to his father and talk to him again. Instead of losing his temper, then, he forces a smile. "I'm a SeeD, actually. Combat trained to a high level. Martial arts."

The man snorts. "You don't look it. Still, you wanted to talk to me? Come on in, if you must."

Zell steps into the house, trying not to look around. He has a feeling he'll be depressed by all the squalor of it. He has a feeling this whole visit will be depressing, but he wanted it. He wanted it so badly. He wanted to know where he came from, and here he is, and he doesn't like the answer. Edea knew, he thinks. Edea didn't want him to know, but she let him go anyway. Just as his adoptive mother – he can't help but think of her as his _real_ mother – let him go. He decides that the very first thing he's going to do when they get back to Balamb is go and hug his Ma. And apologise.

"What's your name?" he asks, reluctantly, realising that the man hasn't told him. His own _father_. It seems – unreal. He's almost glad for that. He can pretend that soon he'll wake up in the back of the car and it'll be alright and they won't be there yet. He knows he _isn't_ dreaming, though. He already tried pinching himself and it hurt a lot.

"Jack."

The door shuts behind him and Zell tries not to feel too trapped. The man – _Jack, his father _– walks along behind him into another room, grudgingly offering him a drink. He declines, and finds a chair to sit in, trying not to move anything.

"So what did you want to talk to me about?"

Zell feels almost like he's being mocked, from the tone in his father's voice. He thought – well, he thought it'd be better than this, anyway. Somehow. He realises now that he never really thought he'd be welcomed with open arms, but he still expected something. Some real spark of interest, some real reaction, rather than this incurious, unemotional meeting.

"I wanted to know what my father and mother were like," he says, quietly. "Can you tell me about my mother?"

"Her name was Yu. Stupid name, stupid girl. You don't look like either of us. She was small. Dark hair. Pretty enough, but she was a stupid little bitch."

Zell bites his lip. He tries to imagine her. Small and pretty? Dark hair? Pale skin? He can't imagine it. He thinks _mother_ and he thinks of Ma Dincht and Matron, and realises that that'll always be the case. "Why did she leave me with you?"

"She was broke."

"She couldn't look after me?"

The man shrugs. Zell hates him more every minute he spends with him, hates that he can't describe his mother accurately, that he never really cared about her. He hates that he came from _this_, and hopes he didn't. He tries to think of all the things he's ever thought of saying to his father.

He finds himself staring down at the carpet, memorising the pattern, until he's sure he'll never forget it. Jack asks him no questions, and turns the television on in a moment without even asking if it's alright. Zell stays as long as he can stand to, trying to find some shred of likeness between himself and this man.

---

Selphie sighs softly, stretching out across the back seat. "How do you think it's going? I mean, when they went inside, that was sort of hopeful, but at the same time I didn't much like the look of the guy. I wouldn't've blamed him for just coming back to the car and calling it quits."

"Me neither," Irvine says, thoughtfully. "And I'm the poor idiot that had to _drive_ all this way. It'd be depressing to have to drive all the way back because he didn't want to talk to that guy, but if I were him, I wouldn't've wanted to talk to that guy either. I don't suppose he'll spend much longer in there, if he can help it."

"And if he does, we should get together a rescue party?"

Irvine laughs and nods slightly. "Maybe, but I think he could handle that guy if he had to."

Selphie nods slightly and then sits up properly, a hint of excitement in her voice again, replaced almost immediately by a kind of sadness. "Here he comes. He doesn't look too happy. Kind of sick, even. Do you think I should go and kick the big guy's ass?"

"I think we should probably just get out of here as quickly as possible," Irvine says, quietly, eyeing Zell's pale face and resolving to take him out for a drink or five sometime soon. There's usually some kind of spring in his step and there isn't any kind of spring right now. Not even a hint of one, actually. Irvine bites his lip.  
Zell opens the door and slides into the car, banging the door shut behind him. His fists are clenched. Selphie moves closer to him, slipping an arm around him and feeling how tense he is. "What happened?"

"His name was Jack. My mother's name was Yu."

"And?"

Zell sighs softly, resting his head back against the seat. Selphie hugs him a little tighter, bubbling over with sympathy, but at the same time reluctant to say much, wanting him to say what he can about it right now and get it out a little. She nudges him gently.

"Better out than in, remember?"

He huffs softly and runs his fingers through his hair, rescuing a rather dejected looking spike from collapsing altogether. He looks a little more like _Zell_ then, trying to smile at them both. "Can we get going first?"

"Sure," Irvine says, glancing over at the house Zell came out of. The man is nowhere to be seen, and he's somewhat glad for that, since things obviously went about as well as Rinoa's first naïve attempts at mastermind schemes. He starts the car and puts his foot down a little harder than necessary until they're out of the small town.

Selphie prods Zell gently. "So what happened?"

"Well… I said that I'm his son and he sort of said that he guesses that must be so. He sent me to some relatives of his, apparently, once he got sick of my crying when I was really little. But they couldn't stand me either. Or maybe they couldn't afford me, I don't know. If they're anything like him, it's because they couldn't be bothered with me. I don't really want to find out. Matron and my ma were right. I didn't really want to know all that much."

Selphie hugs him again and then pulls away, giving him some space. She bites her lip. "What about your mother?"

"Small, dark haired, pretty. That's all he could tell me. He said she was stupid, but I don't think he could find his backside with both hands himself, even if he tried for a day or two."

Irvine bites his lip at the bitter note in Zell's voice. He has a feeling that this mood won't last long – Zell's moods, whether sulky or depressed, never do – but for now it's disconcerting enough. He tries to think of something he can say, some way to change the subject, but he can't think of anything right now. Not yet, he thinks. Let Zell talk a little longer. Let him get it out.

"She left me with him," Zell says, quietly. "She must have been sick of me, too. Or. No, he said… he said that she was broke. I don't think they ever cared about each other at all. Maybe she just left me with him because it was an easy way to get rid of me. She must've known he wouldn't really want anything to do with me."

"Maybe he was nicer when he was younger?" Selphie offers. "Maybe… I don't know. Oh, Zell. I'm sorry."

Zell shrugs slightly. "It's not your fault."

There's a long pause. Zell shifts uncomfortably, and Selphie tries to settle down, hoping that the same thing won't happen to the others who have somewhere to go to try and find their families. She'd hate that. She wants someone – one of them, at least – to have a happy ending, like Squall had with Sir Laguna.

"How long is it until we get back to the others?" Zell asks, quietly.

Irvine presses his foot down a bit harder on the accelerator, for now. "I'll get us there as soon as I can. A few hours, I guess."

"Okay."

They all fall silent again. None of the three of them know what to say. Zell tries to imagine his mother, but the only people that come into his mind are Edea and Ma Dincht. And in a way, he thinks, he really is glad of that. They care about him, for him. For no other reason.

Selphie wonders how the others are doing, and whether they've found anything interesting while they were away. Something that might take Zell's mind off things and get him interested in something else for a while. It'd be good if there was. Zell isn't the brooding type, not like Squall – she shudders to think how Squall would've acted if things had turned out like this for him – but he'll still think on something too long and get himself upset somehow.

Irvine just ponders his original thought about taking Zell out for a drink or five. He's not sure whether getting drunk would really help Zell, but getting just a little bit tipsy might. Friendly company, and a bit of drink… Once upon a time, he might've wanted to take advantage of that, he thinks, and smiles a little to himself. Selphie's enough for any one man – more than enough, sometimes. He'd just like to take care of Zell a little.

He puts his foot down on the accelerator just that little bit more.

When they get back, Edea is waiting outside, as if she _knows_. The sun is setting and she is facing into it, shielding her eyes, as she did when they arrived the first time. She smiles at them as they get out of the car and doesn't seem surprised when Zell comes to her and hugs her tightly.

"I told you that you shouldn't go," she says softly, holding him tightly. His face nestles into her shoulder as if it's natural for it to be there. All of them fit so well into her arms, she thinks. So many children, all of them her own in some way, and none of them really hers.

Zell sniffs a little, and she holds him tighter. "You should have told me why not."

"Sometimes," she says, softly, more gently still, "mothers have to let their children make mistakes, so that they learn."

"I'm glad I have you," he says, softly. "Even if you're not my real mother. I… the two people I think of as my mothers aren't my real mothers and yet they love me much more than my real mother. I don't understand."

"Some people just aren't made to be mothers."

Zell hugs her tighter. Edea wonders if he realises. If he _knows_ exactly how _much_ she wanted a child of her own. If he _realises _that for her, he and all the others were just filling a gap in her life that she couldn't seem able to fill for herself. But she thinks that would hurt him, if he knew.

And he means more than that to her, then and now.

Some people aren't made to be mothers. Some people would love nothing more, and yet never quite get what they want. 


	7. Chapter Six

Thanks for the reviews I have. xD And thanks to Nyzoe for pointing out stuff I do a little too often, though you won't see any improvement on this chapter since it was completed (and edited) before I received the review. I'll try and keep it in mind in future chapters. xD;

* * *

It's a nice day. The sky is a comfortable deep shade of blue; the few clouds are light and fluffy, cheerful rather than threateningly full of rain. Which is somewhat of a factor in Rinoa and Selphie managing to persuade Quistis to come out shopping with them while Seifer and Squall follow something up and Irvine takes Zell out for a drink or two. Irvine has been ordered not to let Zell get drunk and not to get into trouble, and Quistis has told Seifer and Squall (to the accompaniment of Irvine's amused jokes) that if they bicker and fight when they're supposed to be searching for leads to Seifer's parents, she'll whip them. She was only half joking. 

Selphie has stopped in front of a pet shop. Quistis and Rinoa exchange amused glances, watching her coo over a small grey and black striped kitten that paws at the glass of the window display. "I think I ought to get it. Look, it likes me already, it _wants _me to buy it, I think. Do you think Irvine would mind? I don't know whether he's a cat or a dog person…"

"I can't imagine him minding either way," Rinoa says, and Quistis interrupts her, laughter in her voice.

"I don't think you should get a pet, really. They're not encouraged in Garden."

"Squall'd overlook one, for me, though, wouldn't he?"

Rinoa shrugs slightly, looking rather amused. "He didn't mind it when I had Angelo in Garden, but I'm not a SeeD. Either way, Garden might not be the best place for an animal. It's… well, sometimes I think it's not the best place for _people_, the way Squall's turned out."

"I think Irvine would really like a cat. I mean, he's like a cat sometimes. All that independence and laziness and things like that. And cats lick themselves all the time, don't they? Irvine's good at licking things." Selphie winks a little as the other two make faces at the unnecessary information, and then both of them laugh with her. Selphie moves to go into the shop, smiling brightly at them. "I'll only be a minute. I just want a better look at it. You can come in with me, or wait, or if you want to, you can just go on ahead. I'll catch up with you."

Quistis glances at Rinoa, who shrugs. "We'll wait."

Selphie smiles a little more and vanishes into the shop.

"Do you think it's wise to let her go in there? We might never get her back out," Rinoa says, quietly, laughing a little all the same. She feels awkward with Quistis, now, after that conversation on that cold and windy evening, but she shows no sign of having taken any of it to heart. She didn't mean to sound as if she was saying Quistis was heartless. She really doesn't believe that. She just –

She doesn't really know _what_ to think of Quistis, sometimes.

Quistis shrugs slightly. "She'll probably think the kitty is cute even when it takes a swipe at her, but I doubt she'll stay in there too long. She has a long list somewhere of all the shops she'd like to visit while we're here."

Rinoa nods a little and then sighs, wondering how Squall and Seifer are doing. They seemed friendly enough when they set off, though they don't seem to be showing any more signs of actually getting together. She hopes that they'll at least get closer, since they're working together. She did have hopes when they chose to go together… but, of course, Seifer knows Squall better than the others. And Irvine and Zell had plans anyway.

As if reading her mind, Quistis sighs softly. "How do you suppose Seifer and Squall are doing? And how well are you doing with your plan on getting them together? I don't suppose you've got much further yet? Not that I really expect you to manage it anytime soon, if at all – no offence to you, but the pair of them are the most stubborn people I've ever met."

"It doesn't seem like Cupid's on my side at the moment," Rinoa says, shrugging slightly. She tries not to sound as disappointed about that as she feels. She really has no idea why she so much wants Seifer and Squall to be happy, nor why she's so adamant that they'd work well as a couple. She just has a _feeling_ – her instinct – and she's sure Quistis won't really accept that as a good reason. She adds the next without even thinking, and hates herself for it before it's even fully out of her mouth. "Cupid seems to be against me in general right now, not letting me get them together and doing me no favours with my own love life…"

"I can't see why," Quistis says, apparently not taking it as whininess. She laughs a little and gives Rinoa a sidelong look. "I wouldn't be asking me for advice, though. Cupid doesn't seem to favour me, either. Every time I think I have a crush on someone, it turns out to be a purely sisterly feeling coming back to haunt me from my unremembered past with the person. Or the person doesn't swing my way."

"I hope you find someone soon," Rinoa says, somewhat insincerely. She'd like nothing more than to hug Quistis now – kiss her, maybe – show her that Cupid really doesn't spurn her. But, she thinks, with a sigh, it'd be kind of stupid. Quistis likes men – gay men, if she's referring to Seifer and Squall as she thinks she is, but nonetheless, men. And she always seems to think of Rinoa as a nuisance. Even as she started to get more proficient in battle situations, she never felt that Quistis approved of her.

Well. She does hope Quistis will find someone soon. As long as that someone is her. She sighs softly.

"I don't see why you don't already have someone," Quistis says, more quietly than before. Rinoa looks up, feeling almost shy as she meets her eyes, and tries to say something. Tries to, well, echo the sentiment. But she feels like that might spoil the moment, so she _doesn't_ say anything, and just smiles a little and wonders whether she should break the eye contact.

Selphie breaks the moment for them, coming out of the shop, mercifully without a kitten in her arms – and Rinoa is almost annoyed, and at the same time, relieved, that the tension is broken. Selphie smiles at them both. "Okay, I'm done cooing over the animals. It scratched my arm, look! Anyway, it's still really cute. Shall we go and get an ice cream or something? What do you want?"

Quistis shrugs slightly. "Chocolate, I guess."

Rinoa thinks for a moment, and then shrugs slightly. "Strawberry."

"And vanilla for me! Come on, you two, I saw a place selling ice cream up here. I wonder if your choice in chocolate says deep things about your character?" Selphie tips her head in thought and then shrugs it off. "People see meaning in everything, even when it isn't there."

Rinoa hmms softly in thought, nodding slightly. "I suppose strawberry has to do with being childlike, naïve, innocent, since most kids I've met like strawberry. Think it fits me more?"

"Maybe a little. Chocolate… well, chocolate is supposed to be all about being _sensuous_."

"It doesn't fit me at all then," Quistis says, laughing.

Rinoa bites her lip. She's sure that Quistis could suit chocolate quite well, if she wanted to let herself go. If her dreams have ever been at all accurate about Quistis' character, that is. She pushes the thought away, catching up to Selphie and nudging her gently. "What about vanilla? That's supposed to mean boring sex or something, isn't it?"

"Ah, but I always have sauce and sprinkles on it!"

---

The room is small and cool and quiet apart from the sounds of rustling paper. Seifer and Squall have wedged themselves into the records room somehow; both sitting at a small table on chairs that look suspiciously about to collapse. Squall has a record book in his hand that is almost white with dust, and he has his leg pressed against Seifer's thanks to the space constraints, and he finds that he really doesn't want to complain.

He blows some of the dust off the cover, hating the feel of it under his fingers, and Seifer sneezes loudly. "Shit, don't they ever clean in here? I didn't even think anyone ever kept records like this. It seems a bit pointless to me. Why would anyone want to know that on this day fifty years ago Jimmy the paper delivery boy was ill because he drank spoilt milk?"

Squall snorts softly. "You wouldn't believe some of the things Garden has records of. There's an entry for almost every day you were studying there before the war. 'S. Almasy caused a fight in the upper corridor with two junior classmen today'. 'S. Almasy made Instructor K. James run away crying today', 'S. Almasy and S. Leonhart destroyed ten chairs and three tables during the course of a fight'… and, of course, records of hot dog sales. Give me five minutes on my Garden computer terminal and I could tell you how many hotdogs were sold on the first day of sales."

"At least that's digital records. This is all on paper, in books, and in no order I can figure out, and –" Seifer breaks off, dropping the book he's holding in frustration. "I don't think we're going to find anything. Even if there is something to find. Matron didn't even know my parents' _names_ and her records are good."

"There's a difference between not knowing and not being able to find something, though," Squall says, quietly. After a moment, he puts his hand on Seifer's shoulder, squeezing gently. "They're here somewhere, for some reason. If there're records of Jimmy the paper delivery boy falling ill because he drank spoilt milk, there's bound to be some record, somewhere, that talks about your parents. Maybe when they got married, or when you were born. It'll be recorded somewhere."

"Somewhere," Seifer says, bleakly.

"I'm not used to dealing with you being all negative."

"You're just not used to dealing with me being anything but in your face with a gunblade," Seifer says, snorting softly. "If you want a professional opinion, I think you're dealing with me fine. Fujin usually kicks me when I get negative and she'd probably find some way to challenge me about it. Give me something to work against."

Squall laughs. "I think you've got enough to work against already. Shelves full of badly organised record books and dust."

He shrugs slightly and Squall snorts softly, leaning over his shoulder to look at something in the book he was flipping his way through. After a moment, he looks up and smiles at Seifer a bit, pointing to a certain entry in the table on the page he was looking at.

"It's a good thing this isn't just up to you, or you _would_ be looking forever."

"What?" Seifer asks in confusion.

"_Look_," Squall says, rolling his eyes.

Seifer looks. And then curses softly. Squall pulls away for a moment to let him take it in, watching him carefully, trying not to miss any of his reaction. Confusion is replaced by a kind of incredulity and then hope, followed by an obvious decision not to get too excited about this. Seifer's finger runs over the entry again and again, a tiny smile appearing on his face. Squall hopes this is going to turn out well. That Seifer's hope, however much he's trying to squash it, will turn out not to be too optimistic.

He wants to see Seifer really smile, somehow. He's seen him smirk and he's seen his smiles recently, but there's something missing. Some satisfaction or self knowledge, something that's important to Seifer that he's always wondered about and never had. Squall wants him to have that, to be happy with himself, to smile completely. He hopes this is going to do that for him.

"Abigail Roberts. James Almasy. Seifer Almasy."

"A record of your birth," Squall says, quietly.

Seifer nods slightly, seeming a little incredulous again. "Abigail… my mother's name was Abigail?"

"Looks like it."

Seifer takes a deep breath. He never really believed he would find anything, somehow. He thought he did, but it's a shock to actually _find_ something, to actually have his parents' names under his fingertips in a dusty old record book. He was almost expecting to find that as far as anyone can tell, he never did have any parents. And yet they're there. Under his fingertips.

"They're probably dead, aren't they?" he says, softly. He believes that. Seeing them there makes him believe they existed – even that they loved him. But he can't imagine them being alive now.

"It seems… likely."

"I wish I knew what they looked like."

Squall bites his lip, looking around the tiny room. "There might be some further record of them in here. Some of these records have photographs in them. It wouldn't be easy, but we could have a look. There's bound to be something, and it's only a matter of time."

Seifer shakes his head. "There's no point in you wasting your time."

"Wasting my time? Seifer, I – you obviously really care about this. Why would it be wasting my time for me to help you try and find out more about them?"

He shakes his head again, looking up at Squall with a slight smile. "I'm sorry. I'm grateful for the offer, but I've always had a mental image of what they're like. I don't really want to know how wrong I was or anything. Or at least… I'm not ready to know yet. I probably would like to know sometime. But I've spent a lot of time thinking about all this and I'd hate to find out all at once that I was completely wrong…"

Squall snorts softly. "Only you would be worried about imagining things wrongly. You really hate being wrong, don't you?"

"I really hate making a fool of myself."

"Only you know what you think your parents were like."

"_I'd_ still know I was wrong."

Squall rolls his eyes and then returns to business, digging out a bit of paper and his pen. "Write down your parents names. We can try tracking them down more specifically now, whenever you feel ready to. I'll help you."

Seifer nods slightly, taking the paper and the pen and writing the names down carefully. For a moment he just looks at them there on the page and wonders if he is wrong, or if his dreams and daydreams ever came close to the truth of things. He smiles a little as he thinks about it all. His father, in his mind the brave, brave soldier. His mother, staying behind, worrying, looking after him, waiting for his father to come back.

More than not wanting to be wrong, he just doesn't want to lose the vague comfort of such dreams. He'd hate to find out his father was like, well, Zell's. That'd take all the warm cosiness out of his old dreams, somehow, and make all the comfort those thoughts had ever given him some kind of lie.

Squall catches the faint smile on his face and smiles himself. He doesn't know why it does things to him, to see Seifer looking a little more, well, complete, but it's a good feeling and for once that's all that matters. It's always mattered before, to know why he feels the way he feels, but sometimes people – his friends; Rinoa and Seifer most of all – do this to him, and for now he's content to just feel that strange happiness.

It's like that old saying, 'it's better to give than receive', but not quite.

"Tell me what you imagine your parents were like," he says, on a sudden impulse. Seifer looks up, his eyes, for a moment, unguarded.

"I imagined they'd be… you know, stereotypical young couple. Really in love. Soulmates. So sure they'd be together forever. The kind people say are naïve but really envy, you know what I mean? Kind of like you were with Rinoa for a while. And I… I always think of my father as a soldier. My mother waiting for him to come home. Looking after me. Me being a brat of a kid but they loved me anyway. Sometimes I think I can remember her face, but I would've been so young then… blond hair, green eyes, like mine. But… soft. Really… affectionate." Seifer takes a breath and flushes a little. "Shit, I sound like an idiot."

"Not at all," Squall says, quietly. It hurts somehow to think of Seifer imagining his parents. He had Raijin and Fujin, but in some ways he must've been as lonely as Squall himself. And much as he likes to look like a lone wolf who needs nobody, Squall knows that Seifer does need somebody. That's what their fights were about, as much as anything. Seifer needed the contact, the release of the familiar surge of emotions.

That's what the disciplinary committee was about. Seeing people. Talking to people. Even if nobody'd liked Seifer because of it. They hadn't liked him before he'd established it, either.

"I never had dreams like that," he says, biting his lip.

"Did you ever have daydreams at all?"

He bites his lip harder. "Not really. I always just thought I'd be happy if I did well. So I worked as hard as I could, trained all the time. Shiva approved, I think. Every time I started talking to anyone, and they looked like they might be my friend, she'd urge me to spend longer and longer training. I adored her. I'd do it. And when I was done, whoever it was had stopped being interested."

"You still junction Shiva?"

Squall sounds a little sad. "No. I loved her and she was a good partner, but she was _Shiva_. She didn't love me in return."

Seifer feels a little awkward, seeing exposed emotion in Squall's eyes. "Sorry."

Squall shrugs. "I got over it."

"You got over a lot of things," he says, even more awkwardly. "You'd never have had a conversation like this with me before the war."

"I grew up. So did you, I think."

Seifer nods slightly. After a moment, Squall gets up and starts putting the record books back on the shelves, in a kind of thoughtful silence. Seifer works beside him, wondering what he's thinking, not wanting to disturb him even now they've said so much to each other that would never have been possible before.

He lingers over putting that last, important record book back. Squall waits for him, his eyes unreadable. Finally, and with the utmost care, he slots it back into place on the shelf.

Squall just smiles at him. "Ready to go?"

---

"I can't believe my dad is such a bastard."

Irvine snorts softly, handing Zell another drink and sitting down on the stool next to his. They've been here for a while already, but thankfully Zell has been inclined to linger over his drinks, and Irvine's good at holding alcohol, so thus far neither of them are going to be in trouble with Quistis and Selphie when they get back. That could, of course, change.

"It's best not to think about it, you know. You have Matron and your adoptive mother, and they really do love you to bits. It's not like you need that… sperm donor in your life."

"Sperm donor?"

Irvine shrugs. "Sure. That's all he did, right?"

Zell grins a bit, taking a few gulps of his drink at once, but then putting it down. "I suppose. I still sort of wish it wasn't that way, though. Say… do you have any kids?"

"I like to think if I did, you'd know and I'd be taking care of them, at least a little," Irvine says, quietly. There's a tiny hint of hurt in his voice and Zell winces a little, knowing he's put his foot in it – not for the first or last time, of course. "I'm not some sort of slut, and except when I'm really, really drunk, I use protection. And I have Selphie now. But I'm really not like that guy. If I had a kid, I'd want to see him or her, have some sort of part in their lives. I know what it's like growing up without a whole family, and if I could, I'd do my best to see that kid didn't."

"I didn't mean it like that," Zell murmurs, wanting to kick himself.

Irvine shrugs a little and then, grudgingly, nods. "I know."

"I hope that treating kids like shit isn't genetic," Zell mutters, after a moment. "I'd hate to think that if I ever have kids – and I don't really want to, but you never know, right? – that I'd treat them like that. Who'd say to their kid that they were a nuisance when they were little because they were always crying?"

"It's probably a fair assessment."

"Well, yeah, but I mean… not in that tone of voice. More jokingly. Less _accusing_."

"I know what you mean," Irvine says, quietly, nodding a little. He reaches out and claps Zell on the back gently, making him look up. "You've got to think more positively. Forget about that guy and focus on the good stuff. That Matron and your ma love you. That if you're ever a dad, you're going to be a hundred million times better."

Zell has to smile. "I suppose so."

"Stop supposing and start believing," Irvine suggests, and finishes off his drink. He gets up to get another, noting that Zell's is still a little more than half full. He likes this, this relaxed feeling, this feeling of being with a friend and just drinking to loosen up a bit. No particular goal in mind beyond getting Zell to look a little less like someone just killed his puppy or something.

When he gets back to his stool, Zell looks up at him, biting his lip. "Do you think you're going to find your parents?"

Irvine shakes his head slightly, settling down comfortably and sipping at his drink before answering aloud. "Not really. I haven't even really got the faintest clue, since Matron was our best bet and she had no idea. I don't really mind. In the end, I have friends and I have Selphie and I'm pretty content with that."

"So you're pessimistic about it. Squall must be rubbing off on you."

Irvine snorts softly, putting his drink down and winking at Zell. "If you ask me, I'd like a little _more_ of Squall to rub off on me."

It takes Zell a moment to get it, and then he makes a face, blushing a little. "You just said you've got Selphie, doesn't that mean you should keep comments like that to a minimum?"

"That doesn't count. It's not like I'd have sex with Squall or anything. I just happen to think he's hot. Kind of hard to ignore him being one of the hottest things I've ever seen. Don't you think he is?"

"I'm not attracted to guys."

Irvine raises an eyebrow. "You've never even thought about Squall like that? Wow."

He shrugs. "I've never been that interested in sex at all, really. I mean, I've thought about sex as often as any guy does, but I've never been all that obsessed with the idea of having someone or anything like that. I know people are good looking or whatever but I don't get the sudden urge to jump them and drag them into bed with me."

"You must use all your sexual energy up on sparring." Irvine winks. "What a waste."

There's a moment of uncomfortable silence.

" Irvine, if you're coming on to me…"

He rolls his eyes. "Relax. I'm not going to jump on you and drag you into bed with me just because I happen to think you're pretty hot. I love Selphie, remember?"

"Right. Right, sorry." Zell shakes his head slightly, realising that he put his foot in it – _again_. At least Irvine doesn't seem to get too worked up over it all, just accepting it all with that same lazy smile. He smiles at him again now, making him relax a little. Friends forgive their friends, the smile seems to say. Even when they're stupid idiots. Zell takes a deep breath. "So you never thought much about your parents?"

"I'd be lying if I said I haven't thought about them, but I haven't obsessed over them like Seifer always did."

"_Always_ did?"

"Yeah. Even back in the Orphanage, he'd always be telling us about how his daddy was a soldier but one day he'd be coming back for him and his mother would find them and they'd be happy. He always said that like it made him better than the rest of us somehow. I used to feel sorry for him, I think. I'd always accepted no one was coming for me."

" Irvine…"

He shrugs again. "It didn't bother me that much. I had Selphie to play with, and Matron to love me and scold me and fix me up when I fell down."

Zell nods slightly, thinking that over. After a moment, he looks up again, raising an eyebrow and hoping he isn't putting his foot in it again. "Are you ever going to have kids with Selphie? I mean, I know she probably wants kids, she seems the type, but do _you_ want kids?"

Irvine shrugs. "Why not? Selphie'd love it and I like kids most of the time. And I'm sure Quistis would love to be a babysitter for when I want time on my own with Selphie."

"Is that all you think about?"

"A good proportion of the time," Irvine admits unashamedly, finishing his drink. "Finish up your drink and let's get going. I don't feel like getting lectured at by the ladies for letting you stay out past your bedtime, and speaking of sex, I'm actually planning on getting some sometime soon."

"Too much information, man," Zell says, wearily. He finishes his drink and puts the glass down with a sigh. "Let's go."

Irvine sighs softly as they leave the place, realising that though the drink loosened Zell up a bit, it hasn't really done anything for him in the long run. He's not sure what will, except maybe time, but it's odd to see Zell so… _deflated_. As in, not shadow boxing or doing acrobatics or grinning that insanely endearing grin of his.

"Hey," Zell says softly. Irvine looks up at him. "Thanks for trying."

"You're welcome," Irvine says, sighing again.

He hates it when trying doesn't quite cut it.


End file.
